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THE RUSSIAN IMMIGRANT 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

WKWYORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DAIXAS 
ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN & CO.. Limited 

LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNB 

THB MACMILLAN CO. OP CANADA. Lto. 

TORONTO 



The 
RUSSIAN IMMIGRANT 



JEROME DAVIS, Ph. D. 

Sometime Gilder Fellow in Sociology 

at Columbia University 

Assistant Professor of Sociology 

at Dartmouth College 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

1922 






Copyright, 1922 
By the MACMILLAN COMPANY 



Set up and printed. Published September, 1922 



PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



SEP 20 1922 

©CI.A681853 



To the Russian worklngmen whose 
unstinted toil helps to maintain the 
basic industrial mechanism of Amer- 
ica, but who for the most part are by 
this very service kept out of reach 
of the warm, friendly heart of our 
people. 



^ 



PREFACE 

Sociology must begin its investigations with ob- 
servation. As Dr. Giddings says of it, "Descrip- 
tion and history will keep well in advance of ex- 
planation." ^ Of such a study as The Russian Im- 
migrant, this is especially true. Moreover, this sub- 
ject does not readily lend itself to adequate statis- 
tical treatment — the data thus far collected by our 
Federal Government are too meager, and to attempt 
an independent investigation would involve large 
resources and an extensive organization. The pres- 
ent monograph is an attempt to describe only the 
main social forces impinging on the Russian in 
America, and their inevitable effect on his mind. 

Of many shortcomings in this treatise, the writer 
is very much aware. At best it can be but an ap- 
proximation of conditions among the majority of 
Russians in this country. The reader must bear in 
mind that the research was made during a period 
when the Russian's attitude was affected by the 
great social upheaval in his native land, and must 
remember that in America one result of the war 
spirit was a series of repressive measures against 
aliens, especially Russians. 

1 Giddings, F. H., The Principles of Sociology (New York, 1916), 

P- 54- 

vii 



viii Preface 

Since the bulk of the Russian immigration to the 
United States is made up of the peasant and work- ' 
ing classes, it is with them that we are chiefly con- 
cerned. By Russian, as used here, is meant the 
Great Russian, inhabiting Central Russia; the White 
Russian, living between Poland and Russia ; and the 
Little Russian, from what was formerly South Rus- 
sia. It does not include the Jews, Poles, Finns, 
Letts, Lithuanians, Ruthenians from Gahcia, or 
other Slavic races. Throughout this study we shall 
refer to the Russian group defined above as Rus- 
sians or Russian Slavs interchangeably. 

The method employed has been as follows : First, 
the printed matter available on the Russians in 
America was analyzed. A partial list of books, 
pamphlets, and government reports used is to be 
found in the appendix.^ Second, unpublished mate- 
rials, the result of surveys made by others, were 
utilized. Among these were researches by Mr. Cole 
of Chicago, by the Russian Division of the Foreign 

2 The only book which the author found dealing exclusively with 
immigrants from the Russian empire was a paper-bound volume 
entitled The Russians in America, which dealt with Jews and 
Poles as well as the Russian Slavs and was available only in 
the Russian language. The author, Mr. Vilchur, was formerly 
editor of The Russkoye Slovo, a Russian newspaper printed in New 
York. His book is more in the nature of a popular historical sketch 
than of an analysis of the relationship of the Russian to our 
American society. In addition to this, there was a pamphlet in 
Russian, On the Question of the Organization of the Russian Colony, 
the result of a study made by E. I. Omeltchenko, a member of the 
Extraordinary Russian Mission sent to the United States by 
Kerensky in 1917. This contains the results of personal visits to 
the various Russian colonies, and the conclusions reached are 
important. 



Preface ix 

Language Governmental Information Bureau, by the 
Carnegie Foundation, by the Inter-Racial Council, 
and by Mr. Sack of the Russian Information Bu- 
reau. Third, a personal investigation of Russian 
groups In the United States was made. The writer 
was particularly fortunate In having had the back- 
ground of two years and a half in Russia and a 
knowledge of the Russian language, without which 
this study would have been impossible. He per- 
sonally visited the following cities, each one being 
the headquarters of a district of the Russian Greek 
Orthodox Church In America : New York, Includ- 
ing Brooklyn; Bridgeport and Hartford, Conn.; 
Boston, Philadelphia, Scranton, Olyphant, Coaldale, 
Pittsburgh, Donora, in Pennsylvania; Cleveland, 
Detroit, Chicago, Minneapolis. Others he visited 
were Ansonia, Waterbury, Seymour, and New Ha- 
ven, Conn.; Braddock and McKees Rocks, Pa.; 
Akron, Ohio; and Denver. Among Russians In the 
states of North Dakota, Washington, and Califor- 
nia, special investigations were made on a uniform 
basis, and the detailed reports were incorporated 
with those gained by personal investigation. In 
each of the communities the leaders of the various 
Russian groups were interviewed. These Included 
any or all of the following: (a) the Russian priests, 
(b) the Russian consul, (c) the editors of Rus- 
sian papers, (d) Russian professional men, (e) 
Russian workmen or farmers. Where possible, 
visits were made to observe: (a) workmen's clubs, 



X Preface 

(b) Russian Socialist or Communist party head- 
quarters, (c) typical homes of Russian workmen 
including boarding houses. In some cases, con- 
ferences were held with the following American 
agencies when they were doing work for Russians : 
(a) American churches, (b) Americanization com- 
mittees, (c) industrial or Americanization Y.M. 
C.A. secretaries, (d) International Institutes of 
the Y.W.C.A., (e) banks, (f) labor union offi- 
cials, (g) employers of Russian labor, (h) public 
hospitals where Russians are treated, (i) U. S. Im- 
migration officers, (j) teachers or experts who had 
special contacts with foreigners. Russians impris- 
oned on Ellis Island and in Hartford were also per- 
sonally interviewed. Later, with the authorization 
of the Assistant Secretary of Labor, Mr. Post, the 
writer talked with over one hundred other Russians 
imprisoned by the Federal Government in Detroit 
and Pittsburgh. 

The writer wishes to express his appreciation of 
courtesies extended him in securing copies of letters, 
documents, and articles from the Foreign Language 
Governmental Information Bureau, now under the 
American Red Cross. 

He is indebted to the various authors of the 
Americanization studies of the Carnegie Founda- 
tion for original material and for permitting access 
to advance copies of their manuscripts, and to 
the Research Department of the National Board 
of the Young Women's Christian Association 



Preface xi 

for allowing the freedom of their files. He ac- 
knowledges the kindness of the United States De- 
partment of Labor in having given him every as- 
sistance in visiting the prisons where Russians were 
confined and in furnishing original data. His 
warmest thanks are due especially to all the Russian 
individuals and groups too numerous to mention, 
who gave so generously of their time, and whose 
cooperation was essential to the completion of the 
study. 

The author is grateful to Dr. Thomas Reed 
Powell, Dr. Henry R. Seager, Dr. Robert E. Chad- 
dock, Dr. W. F. Ogburn, and Dr. R. S. Wood- 
worth for reading certain chapters or making help- 
ful criticism. He desires also to express his especial 
appreciation of the assistance of Dr. Alvan A. Ten- 
ney. To Dr. Franklin H. Giddings the writer feels 
under lasting obligation for being the first to open 
his mind to the deeper implications of sociology and 
for influencing his thinking on the subject of this 
study. 

The responsibility for the viewpoint taken and 
for any errors or shortcomings in the treatment, 
rests on the writer alone. 



CONTENTS 



PAGK 



Preface. Scope and Method .... vii 

Chapter I. Introduction: the Russian 

Problem i 

1. Importance of the problem ... 2 

2. Dearth of knowledge about Russians 

in America 4 

3. This study a cross section of social 

forces acting on the immigrant . 4 

Chapter II. Migration and Distribution . 6 

1. First migrations to Alaska and Cali- 

fornia 6 

2. A slow aggregation 8 

3. Estimated numbers in America . . 10 

4. Distribution 11 

5. Migration within the United States 13 

6. Summary 15 

Chapter III. Environing Economic Forces 16 

1. Means of livelihood 16 

2. Conditions of labor 19 

3. The employer 22 

4. Accidents 27 

5. The boss 30 

6. The labor union 2^ 

7. Wages 42 

8. Banks 47 

9. Conditions on the farm . ... . 51 
10. Conclusion 54 



XIU 



xiv Contents 

PAGE 

Chapter IV. The Russian in his Home 

Environment 56 

1. Isolation 56 

2. Housing 57 

3. Factors relating to health . . . 66 

4. Single Russians 77 

5. Married Russians 80 

6. The second generation .... 83 

7. Recreation 84 

8. Conclusion 89 

Chapter V. Organized Social Forces: Re- 
ligious and Educational .... 91 

1. The Russian Greek Orthodox Church 91 

2. The Protestant Church . . 103 

3. American public and private agencies 105 

4. Russian non-political organizations . 1 1 1 

5. Russian political organizations . . 114 

6. The Russian press 123 

7. Summary 142 

Chapter VI. The Russian's Relation to 

our Government . . . . . . 144 

1. Legislation . . . . . . . 144 

2. Agencies of law and order : the police 157 

3. The Courts 159 

4. Federal agents 161 

5. The effect of the Russian revolution 172 

6. Conclusion 174 

Chapter VII. Conclusion 176 

1. America's contribution to the Russian 176 

2. Isolation and unlikeness of foreign- 

born Russians 178 

3. Need of increasing the likeness be- 

tween the Russian and American 

mind 184 



Contents xv 

PACK 

4. Possible methods of securing like- 

mindedness 188 

Appendix. The Social Impress of an Au- 
tocracy 197 

1. A peasant immigration .... 197 

2. Land holdings 198 

3. Agricultural backwardness . . . 198 

4. Conditions in industry . . .199 

5. The peasant's attitude toward the 

land 200 

6. The cooperative movement . . . 200 

7. Health 201 

8. The family 202 

9. Recreational life 203 

10. Religion 204 

11. Education 204 

12. Relation to the government . 205 

13. Summary of environmental conditions 208 

14. Obstacles to immigration . . 209 

15. Characteristics of the Russian . . 211 

Bibliography. The Russians in America . 215 



THE RUSSIAN IMMIGRANT 

CHAPTER I 

introduction: the Russian problem 

Never before in history has a democratic 
nation attempted to assimilate such a large and con- 
stantly inflowing stream of foreigners as has the 
United States. In consequence, we have become a 
heterogeneous nation of mixed races. The thir- 
teenth census tells us that two-fifths of our popula- 
tion are foreign-born. During the war it was found 
that twenty-four and nine-tenths per cent of the men 
in the draft camps were illiterate.^ Unless we can 
strengthen likemindedness and a sense of national 
solidarity this situation is pregnant with danger.^ 
Following the war the immigration problem has 
again forced itself on pubhc attention. Congress 
has for the first time enacted a measure which 
restricts incoming immigrants to a percentage of the 
number of the nationals ^ of each country residing 
here. This effectively stops the flood of foreigners 

^ U. S. Bureau of Education, Report of the Commissioner of 
Education (1919), p. 44. 

2 Cf. Giddings, Inductive Sociology (N. Y., 1901), pp. 227-8, "The 
Laws of Liberty." 

* Nationals here means all persons of foreign birth whether 
naturalized or not. 



2 The Russian Immigrant 

who desire to escape the hardships resulting from 
the World War but affords scant aid to the millions 
now in the United States. Up to Jan. i, 1922, 
Congress had not yet taken any action whatsoever, 
on any of the bills for the promotion of Americani- 
zation.* Within the vast aggregation of foreigners 
already here, each racial group presents its own 
problems. Among others, those who came from the 
old empire of the Russian Tsars have attracted 
particular attention as including within their ranks 
dangerous alien agitators and Bolshevik agents. 

Early in 1920 the Department of Justice took oc- 
casion to warn the country of the "red menace," and 
even sent to the newspapers, at its own expense, 
plates ready for printing with the following head- 
lines : ^ "Warns Nation of the Red Peril — U. S. 
Department of Justice Urges Americans to Guard 
Against Bolshevism Menace." We have only to 
recall the series of raids instigated by state and na- 
tional authorities during 19 19 and 1920 to appre- 
ciate the situation. In New York State the Lusk 
Committee instituted a vigorous search for "red" 
aliens, while in the nation at large the Department 
of Justice conducted raids in which over five thou- 
sand were arrested. It now has cards of two hun- 
dred thousand ultra-radical individuals and organ- 

* Letter to the author from the Chief Clerk of the U. S. Bureau 
of Education. 

s Dean Pound of the Harvard Law School and eleven other 
prominent lawyers, Report Upon the Illegal Practices of the United 
States Department of Justice (Washington, 1920), p. 67. 



The Russian Problem 3 

izatlons in the United States.® According to the 
report of the Attorney General, fully ninety per cent 
of those considered the most dangerous are aliens/ 
Since the chief targets of these activities were those 
from the Russian Empire and over ninety per cent 
of those deported were sent to Russia, it is especially 
important that we know and understand the Russian 
Slav in America. 

It is true that since many Russians are now vol- 
untarily leaving our country, the problem might 
seem to be simplified; in reality it thus becomes more 
complex. For two and one-half years the writer 
was in intimate contact with soldiers and peas- 
ants in many parts of Russia; and he found it diffi- 
cult to find a peasant or soldier who had been in 
America and was still friendly to us. Instead, they 
cursed us as a nation of money-getters and selfish 
capitalists. The thousands of disappointed and em- 
bittered Russians who have already left our shores 
are doubtless now acting in many cases as agents 
of hatred, as they go through city, town, and village; 
they serve to spread the gospel of enmity towards 
America, and prejudice large numbers of the people 
against our nation.^ From the merely selfish stand- 
point of international trade, this will prove costly; 
from the standpoint of international peace and mu- 
tual understanding it is most deplorable. The activ- 

^ Report of the Attorney General of the United States, Ig20, 

P- 173; 

^ Ibid.^ p. 177. 

8 Professor Petrunkevich of Yale has noted this danger. Cf. 
Standard, Feb., 1920, p. 175. 



4 The Russian Immigrant 

Ity of the American Relief Administration and the 
appropriation of twenty millions by Congress in 
December, 192 1, for the work of that organization 
in Russia is helping to counteract this; nevertheless 
the attitude of the multitude of Russians who have 
been and are now in America, may in the long run 
count for more. 

Besides these motives there is yet a stronger rea- 
son for centering our attention on the Russian Slav. 
No books in the English language and but meager 
material describing this one nationality in America 
are available.^ Most writers have attempted to 
analyze conditions as they affect the Russians as a 
part of a general consideration of the immigrant 
races, sometimes reviewing but one phase of the 
problem such as health.^" In the present study in- 
stead of cutting across many racial lines we shall 
hope to get a cross section, as it were, of the out- 
standing social forces acting on the one racial group, 
the Russian. To some extent, however, the experi- 
ence of the Russian Slav is the experience of all the 
races from southeastern Europe. Since 1882, the 
aliens from southeastern Europe, frequently termed 
the "new immigration," have been growing numeri- 
cally over those from northwestern Europe in an 
ever-increasing ratio. A study of the Russian 
problem, therefore, will have a value for the larger 
Slavic group as well. 

^ Cf. footnote, Preface, p. viii. 

10 See the volumes of the Americanization Studies of the Carnegie 
Foundation. 



The Russian Problem 5 

Further, a study of one foreign race among us is 
also in some part a study of American civilization. 
It will obviously be fragmentary and without unity; 
but sidelights and a flash here and there may dis- 
close parts of actual structure that need to be known. 
These alien races form the human sub-structure of 
many of our industries. Our treatment of them is 
one test of the social institutions of our democracy. 
Do we avail ourselves of the highest scientific knowl- 
edge in our treatment of potential citizens? Are the 
trained psychologists, sociologists, and educators, 
behind our policies and methods? In a democracy, 
the problem of the potential citizen must be a major 
one. If we find that intelligent and trained opinion 
is not being used in treating one problem, it occasions 
the query. Are we using more rational methods in 
other fields? Furthermore, it is interesting to raise 
the question as to how justly in the eyes of a new 
group of the foreign-born, our democratic institu- 
tions are functioning. 

Sociology maintains that if the social point of 
view which the foreigner brings with him, and the 
social forces which are to act upon him are known, 
the attitude which the majority of his nationality 
will take toward the foreign country to which they 
come can be predicted. Even a partial description 
of these forces will help to explain the resulting 
attitude of the Russian.^^ 

^1 The author strongly urges that the section on "The Social Im- 
press of an Autocracy" in the Appendix be read at this point be- 
fore taking up Chapter II. 



CHAPTER II 

MIGRATION AND DISTRIBUTION 

First Migrations to Alaska and California 

The beginnings of Russian migration to America 
read like a romance. Over twenty-five years before 
the United States declared her Independence, as 
early as 1747, Russian colonists, searching for a bet- 
ter climate and a more fertile soil than Siberia af- 
forded, embarked in rude boats built of green lum- 
ber and manned by Russian convicts/ Many of them 
went safely across Bering Sea, along the coast of 
Alaska and made their first center at Kodiak Island. 
A profitable fur trade with the Alaskan natives de- 
veloped, and some of the latter were won over to 
the Russian Orthodox faith. In 1792 the Holy 
Synod sent out a special mission of monks to minister 
to the colonists and their converts, and the first 
Orthodox Church was built in America. It proved 
successful and thousands of natives were baptized. 
From that time on until the transfer of Alaska to 
the United States, the number of Russians steadily 
increased. 

They pushed out in all directions. Some went on 

1 Cf. Scrapie, E. C, Influences of Geographic Environment (N. Y.. 
1911), p. 29. 

6 



Migration and Distribution 7 

to Baronoff Island; by 1812 they had explored the 
California coast, and decided to locate in the red- 
wood belt of Sonoma County. The tract of timber 
was the deciding factor in the location; with it they 
fenced their farms, built their homes and even estab- 
lished a ship-building plant. They constructed the 
first ocean-going vessel launched on this side of the 
Pacific. For thirty years they grew and prospered. 
They had their cultivated farms, their herds, their 
schools and churches. 

Unexpectedly one day a ship arrived from Russia ; 
in a few minutes the cannon on the cliff were boom- 
ing and the bell in the Greek Church was ringing, 
calling the Russians to assemble. Owing to trouble 
with Spain, the Tsar's regime had ordered the col- 
onists to return at once. Still believing, as they did, 
in the Tsar, there was only one thing for them to do. 
Sorrowfully they abandoned all the accumulations 
of their toil, and embarked for home. The red- 
wood buildings still stand as monuments to their ad- 
venturous achievement.^ 

Later on, after the sale of Alaska in 1867, many 
more of the Russians returned home, while others 
went to California. As a result of their influence, 
the headquarters of the Russian Church in America 
was removed to San Francisco in 1872. Since that 
time, California has always contained an important 
Russian colony. 

2 Gregory, T., Sonoma County, California, pp. 18-28; Bancroft, 
History of California, vol. i, pp. 298, 628-635; vol. 2, chaps, xiv, 



xxvm. 



8 The Russian Immigrant 

A Slow Aggregation 

It was not until 1872 that from the entire Russian 
empire, exclusive of Poland, as many as one thousand 
immigrants entered the United States in any one 
year.^ By 1882 the number had increased to 16,918 
and in 1892 reached its high water-mark, for any year 
in the nineteenth century, with 81,511 immigrants. 
These figures, however, are of little value as an indi- 
cation of the actual number of Russian Slavs who 
came to America. The records of the census are not 
sufficiently detailed. Until 1899, with the exception 
of Poland, all who came from territory controlled 
by the Tsar's government were classified as Rus- 
sians. The statistics of those entering from 1899 to 
19 10 show that the predominating element from the 
Empire, or 43.8 per cent, were Jews; next came the 
Poles with 27.0 per cent, while the Russians com- 
prised only 4.4 per cent, the remainder being scat- 
tered among various other nationalities.* It seems 
probable, therefore, that up to 1899 the number of 
Russian Slavs was insignificant. From Russia the 
Jews were the chief settlers in America and their 
enthusiastic reports stimulated the Russians them- 
selves to make the venture. 

From the year 1899, however, there was almost a 
steady increase in the number of Russian immigrants 
until in the year 19 13 alone there entered a total of 

^Reports of the Immigration Commission (1911), vol. 3, table 9, 
p. 14. 
* Ibid., vol. 3, p. 52. 



Migration and Distribution 9 

51,472. In 19 14, the war stopped further immi- 
gration from Russia and to-day a revolutionary Bol- 
shevik power prohibits emigration, so that from 
19 14 on, America has been, if anything, losing Rus- 
sians through emigration instead of gaining them. 

Estimated Numbers in America 

There were in the United States in 19 10, accord- 
ing to the census, 57,926 foreign-born Russians; but 
13,781 were Russians from Austria and 1,400 were 
from Hungary. On the other hand, 3,402 persons 
were counted as Ruthenians who came out of Rus- 
sia. In all, therefore, probably about 46,147 for- 
eign-born Russians were to be found in the United 
States in 1910.^ In addition, the same census re- 
cords 37,211 Russians of foreign or mixed parent- 
age born in this country. From July i, 19 10, to 
June 30, 19 19, there has been a net increase of 
76,595 Russians over those departing.^ This would 
make a total now in the United States of 159,953; 
but we have not included the surplus of births over 
deaths among the Russians here. Yet the 1920 
Census records 392,049 foreign-born Russians in the 

^ In considering these figures it should be remembered that our 
census listed as Russians all those who called Russian their native 
language. But since the last Russian census, in 1897, records the fact 
that two per cent of the entire European population were Jews who 
would fall within this class, and since the great majority of 
emigrants to America from Russia were Jews, undoubtedly much 
more than two per cent were so included in our census. Cf. 
Thirteenth Census, Population, vol. i, table 3, p. 963. 
^ U. S. Bureau of Immigration, Annual Report of the Commis- 
sioner-General of Immigration. 



TO The Russian Immigrant 

United States and including those born in America 
of Russian parentage, a total of 731,949. Those 
familiar with the methods of census enumeration 
know that this number is open to a large possible 
error. Different authorities make widely varying 
estimates. The Inter-Racial Council and the Presi- 
dent of the Central Executive Committee of the Fed- 
eration of Russian Organizations in the United 
States, Professor Alexander Petrunkevich of Yale, 
estimate that in 1920 there were at least 400,000 
Russians here,^ while Dr. Hourwich, a well-known 
writer on immigration, places the number below 
300,000.^ The figure given by the Secretary to the 
Russian Consul General in the same year was ap- 
proximately half a million, while that of the head of 
the Russian department of the American Red Cross 
is as high as 600,000. Although these conjectures 
are of uncertain value, the official census figures 
would seem to justify accepting the number as about 
700,000, although this is an increase of 700 per cent 
since 19 10. 

Distribution 

When the Russian first lands in America, he is 
practically in poverty. From 19 10 to 19 14 inclu- 
sive, out of 155,002 only 8,332, or 5.3 per cent, had 
over fifty dollars.^ Almost penniless, his first task 

■^ The Standard, February, 1920, p. 176. 

8 Estimate given in an interview with the writer. 

^ U. S. Bureau of Immigration, Annual Report of the Commis- 
sioner-General of Immigration, table 7, pp. 20-21, 1910; pp. 20-21, 
1911; pp. 74-75, 1912; pp. 46-47, 1913; pp. 42-43, 1914. 



Migration and Distribution II 

is to find employment. His destination Is usually 
determined by one or both of two factors, the de- 
mand for hard labor in factory and mine, and the 
location of other Russian groups. 

The following table is only indicative of the dis- 
tribution of the Russians in the United States to-day: 

The Number of t,, ■. . . ■ r> 

T, . • ^u The Intended Fu- 

Kussians m the ^ r> -j c 

/->u- c c ^ A ture Residence or 

Chief States Ac- ^. t, • a j 

,. ^ ^1 /^ the Russians Ad- 
cording to the Cen- . ^ . , ^ ^ , 

r** • ^u mittedtothe 

sus or iQio m the tt •.. j c .. x? 

r\ J L T^L • United States From 
Order of Their ^ ,„ 

T ^ 1910 to 1919 •^" 

Importance ' ' ' 

State Order Number Order Number 

New York i 34,6i2 i 50,189 

Pennsylvania 2 24,558 2 27,401 

Illinois 3 4,036 4 15,199 

New Jersey 4 4,031 6 7,86i 

Ohio 5 3,871 8 4,384 

Connecticut 6 3,013 7 7,328 

Massachusetts 7 2,674 3 16,372 

North Dakota 8 1,886 20 920 

Maryland 9 1,875 9 4,146 

California 10 1,828 11 2,997 

Minnesota 11 1,517 13 2,453 

Michigan 12 1,274 5 8,378 

Missouri 13 1,104 17 1,119 

Wisconsin 14 956 15 2,029 

Washington 15 666 10 3,222 

Colorado 16 546 27 490 

Iowa 17 511 21 899 

Indiana 18 504 16 1,420 

West Virginia 21 376 14 2,040 

New Hampshire 29 251 12 2,490 

Others 5,048 . . 9,738 

Total 95,137 171,075 

According to the distribution in 19 lO, we find that 
of the total, 95,137, New York had over 34,000, 

1° Compiled from the Annual Reports of the Commissioner- 
General of Immigration. 



12 The Russian Immigrant 

or 36.5 per cent, Pennsylvania over 24,000 or 25.2 
per cent, while New Jersey and Illinois had only 
about 4,000 each and Ohio just over 3,800. Accord- 
ing to the 19 10 Census, five-eighths of all the Rus- 
sians were in New York and Pennsylvania. 

Once a substantial number of Russians have ar- 
rived in America and found work, we might expect 
that others as they come would seek to join them. 
As a matter of fact, we find that those arriving 
since the 19 10 Census have done this only in part. 
At least the table showing the list of the states in 
the order of intended future residence of those en- 
tering from 19 10 until 19 19, does not follow ex- 
actly the order of the distribution by states as shown 
by the Census of 1910.^^ Massachusetts occupies 
the seventh instead of the third place, displacing 
Illinois. Michigan is in the fifth instead of the 
twelfth place, displacing Ohio, Connecticut, and 
New Jersey; New Hampshire appears in the twelfth 
place instead of the twenty-ninth, while North Da- 
kota falls from eighth to twentieth. These differ- 
ences seem to reflect changes in our industrial order 
and a shifting of nationalities in certain industries. 
Massachusetts is now using large numbers of Rus- 
sians in her textile industries which have expanded 
rapidly since 19 10. Michigan has developed huge 

^^ It must be remembered that this is not necessarily conclusive 
evidence. Each table is based on different data, one representing 
where the Russians actually were in 1910, the other where, since 
that date, the Russians declared they were going to live after their 
entry into the United States. 



Migration and Distribution 13 

automobile plants, while New Hampshire now uses 
large numbers of Russians in her paper mills. As 
for North Dakota, she has little more available 
good land for homesteading and, in any case, a large 
amount of capital is needed to develop it success- 
fully. 

No doubt the war played its part in shifting the 
Russians to the munition and shipbuilding centers. 
New England now has a larger number of Russians 
than it had in 19 10. The Inter-Racial Council esti- 
mated in 1920 the approximate numbers of Russians 
in the more important states as follows: "New 
York, 60,000; Illinois, 50,000; Massachusetts, 40,- 
000; Pennsylvania, 35,000; Ohio, 45,000; Michi- 
gan, 30,000; New Jersey, 35,000; Connecticut, 20,- 
000. According to the same source the largest Rus- 
sian colonies are to be found in the following cities: 
New York, 25,000; Detroit, 17,000; Chicago, 20,- 
000; San Francisco, 15,000; Pittsburgh, 14,000; 
Philadelphia, 12,000; Newark, 10,000; Jersey City, 
8,000; Cleveland, 5,000; St. Louis, 5,000." 



12 



Migration Within the United States 

Within the United States, the Russian family 
groups do not move often. After talking with over 
one hundred families scattered in the various cities 
visited, the writer found that eighty-five per cent 
of them, irrespective of the length of their stay in 

12 Vilchur, M., The Russians in America (N. Y., 1918), gives 
approximately the same figures, pp. 60-61. 



14 The Russian Immigrant 

the United States, had not made more than one 
change from city to city, if they had moved at all. 
This is, of course, not a large enough statistical 
sample to be conclusive, but it seems probable, once 
a family is settled, takes in boarders, rents a house 
or apartment, that it would find moving difficult, and 
the testimony of the Russian priests to the author 
was one further confirmatory evidence. It is chiefly 
during strike conditions, general unemployment, or 
unusual opportunities to secure better work, that the 
Russian family moves. If the man hears of better 
work elsewhere, he will sometimes go alone to test 
it out, sending for the family if everything proves 
satisfactory. 

Russians without families in this country move 
somewhat more frequently. Some of them have 
been in as many as eight different states in five years, 
but this is unusual. In seventy-eight cases of Rus- 
sian political prisoners in Detroit who came to the 
United States within the last fourteen years,^^ the 
following facts are significant: twelve out of the 
78 or 15 per cent had remained in the same place 
since coming to America, the average number of 
changes in residence was 2.2 times in 7 years." 
These facts seem to indicate that even the single Rus- 
sians do not move often. These men may not have 
been typical of the average Russian, but it would 
appear that those who have been arrested or who 

13 Only two of these had wives in this country. 

1^ From a personal investigation made by the author. 



Migration and Distribution 15 

have grown dissatisfied through failure to become 
adjusted to America, would move more frequently 
than those who have become so adjusted. 

Stimmary 

The aggregation of Russians in the United States 
has conformed to a law both of physics and of so- 
ciology: it has followed the line of least resistance. 
The mass of Russians have taken the first positions 
that were available and this has concentrated them 
in urban communities. According to the United 
States Census, 87 per cent of all the foreign-born 
from the Russian empire exclusive of Finland lived 
there in 1910.^^ Because they have been played 
upon in like ways by similar forces they have become 
segregated in colonies and industrial centers. The 
various social and economic forces in Russia and 
America have acted on them to place them where 
they were just as truly as have the giant glaciers 
acted on certain boulders and rocks to leave them 
in the valleys. In the succeeding chapters we shall 
attempt to trace other forces which are molding the 
attitude of these newcomers towards our people 
and our country. 

^5 Thirteenth Census, Population, vol. i, table 22, p. 818. 



CHAPTER III 

ENVIRONING ECONOMIC FORCES 

We have seen that the economic and social con- 
ditions of the Russian newcomers force them to ac- 
cept almost any opening in the labor market. We 
shall now attempt to analyze some of the definite 
stimuli which affect them in their new and strange 
economic world. 

Means of Livelihood 

The Russian born are chiefly to be found among 
the lowest types of manual laborers in the mines and 
factories of America. Definite statistics as to what 
proportions are engaged in the various occupations 
at the present time are not obtainable. The United 
States Immigration Commission made a study in 
1909 of 507,256 wage-earners in mines and manu- 
facturing establishments of America and found that 
of these, 1.6 per cent of the male and .9 per cent 
of the female foreign-born workers were Russian. 
To be more exact, there were 6,588 male and 914 
female foreign-born Russian workers and 1,299 
male and 1,305 female native-born workers of Rus* 
sian parents constituting in all 1.5 per cent of the 
total number of wage-earners investigated. Most 

16 



Environing Economic Forces 17 

of the foreign-born were found In coal mining and In 
the iron and steel Industries. This fact has been 
confirmed by other studies/ A ranking of the In- 
dustries according to the number found employed 
in them made by the Immigration Commission 
follows : 

Russian Parentage 
Born in Russia Born in U. S. 

Coal Mining 1,853 176 

Iron and Steel 1,372 150 

Slaughtering, Meat Packing i,oio 324 

Clothing 536 555 

Wool and Worsted Goods 527 52 

Cotton Goods 471 87 

Sugar Refining 372 21 

Agricultural Implements 307 250 

Cigars and Tobacco 220 180 

Leather 207 106 

Glass 147 84 

Boots and Shoes 123 64 

Oil Refining 103 14 

Construction Work 103 2 

Silk Goods 70 489 

Iron, Ore Mining 24 6 

Collars, Cuffs and Shirts 22 4 

Furniture 18 21 

Copper Mining, Smelting 6 17 

Silk Dyeing 5 o 

These statistics record over three times as many 
foreign as native born. They seem to indicate that 
the second generation Russian leaves the harder 
lines of work and shifts into the easier. For ex- 
ample, in coal mining there was the proportion of 
10 foreign to one native-born of Russian parents, 
in iron and steel 9 to i, and in sugar refining about 

1 Vilchur, M., The Russians in America, op. cit., p. 62 ; Balch, 
E. G., Our Slavic Fellozv Citizens (N. Y., 19 10), p. 282. 



1 8 The Russian Immigrant 

1 8 to I. Yet in agricultural implements, leather, 
glass, boots and shoes, and tobacco there are over 
half as many native of Russian parents as foreign- 
born; in clothing there are more of the second gen- 
eration, while in silk goods there are seven times 
as many.^ 

Another investigation conducted by the U. S. Im- 
migration Commission in 1909 among 80,000 em- 
ployees on the Pacific Coast and in the Rocky Moun- 
tain States showed that the greatest number of Rus- 
sians were in the following industries, in the order 
of their importance : ^ i, steam railway; 2, coal min- 
ing; 3, lumber; 4, beet sugar manufacturing; 5, can- 
neries; 6, glass; 7, smelting; 8, cement; 9, electric 
railways. It will be noticed that these are all indus- 
tries in which large numbers of unskilled workers 
are employed. The Russians take the job at the 
bottom of the ladder; they have the roughest and 
hardest tasks; as they express it in their native lan- 
guage, they do the "black work." This is doubtless 
inevitable since they are illiterate, penniless, and 
speak a foreign language, but it is unfortunate that 
the conditions in the industries employing these 
marginal workers should be as unfavorable as 
they are. 

2 It should also be borne in mind that the Russian immigration is 
new, and that these industries may use more children than the 
others. 

'^Abstracts of Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. i, 
table 3, p. 627. 



Environing Economic Forces 19 

Conditions of Labor 

We have seen that the greatest number of Rus- 
sians are found in coal mining and the Iron and steel 
industry. Let us examine briefly the conditions un- 
der which they labor. Judge Gary has admitted 
that 69,000 men have been working the twelve-hour 
day (that is from eleven to fourteen hours) for the 
U. S. Steel Corporation/ The author's investiga- 
tion as well as that of others including the Inter- 
Church and the Pittsburgh Survey, has found that 
most of the Russians are in the class that has been 
working in this way; they are subjected not only to 
the twelve-hour shift but the seven-day week.° 
About every fortnight they have been forced to 
work an eighteen- or twenty-four-hour day, when 
the turn from a night to a day shift occurred. "In 
some plants the thirty-six-hour turn is still not un- 
known." ^ What this means in the actual life of the 
employee can be realized by the testimony of one 
of them. "Time on the job, 91 hours; eating, 
about 9; street car (45 minutes each way), 10.5; 
sleep (7>4 hours a day), 52.5; dressing, undress- 
ing, washing, and so forth, 5; that totals 168 or 
every single hour in the week, and it's how I slave." 
This is not a rare occurrence for those who live a 

* U. S. Senate Committee on Education and Labor, Investigation 
of Strike in Steel Industries (1919), vol. i, p. 157. 

^Inter-Church World Movement Report on the Steel Strike of 
1919 (N. Y., 1920), pp. 44-84. 

^Ibid., p. 47. 



20 The Russian Immigrant 

considerable distance from their work, and is bit- 
terly resented. As another Slavic worker expressed 
it, "Wor'rk, wor'rk always every day, every week, 
ten hours days and twelve hours nights — alia time — 

no spell — and alia time every d furnace 

hongry." ' The twelve-hour day does violence to 
the Russian's play instinct just as truly as to that of 
an American, although each might find expression 
for it in a different manner. Furthermore, as the 
Inter-Church report says, "The twelve-hour day 
makes any attempt at 'Americanization' or other 
civic or individual development for one-half of all 
immigrant steel workers arithmetically impossible." 
(p. 12). 

It is not the long hours alone which arouse re- 
sentment, but the fact that in contrast to former 
work in the fields, the present tasks are hazardous, 
unhealthful and unpleasant. To those who have 
been through a large steel mill at night a description 
is unnecessary. For those who have not, let me 
quote from an officer of a steel company who him- 
self went into the steel mills and worked as a com- 
mon laborer for several months during 1919 : "Then 
when the white-hot steel is roaring and blazing into 
the huge ladle — he must lift large paper sacks of 
coal to his shoulder, run towards the ladle and with 
all his strength hurl them into the blazing, scorch- 
ing torrent. Thereupon the flames, fed by the 

7 Williams, W., ff hat's on the Worker's Mind (N. Y., 1920), 
p. 25. 



Environing Economic Forces 21 

carbon, leap to the roof and the heat is fearful." ^ 
Or again the same observer remarked that he could 
not have stayed ten minutes in the checker cham- 
ber: the temperature was so high that scientists 
could prove it was impossible to maintain life there 
(sic). Yet the foreigners endure it for half-hour 
periods at a time, taking out brick.^ The reaction 
of a Russian to these tasks, while not so violent as 
that of an American, nevertheless is distinct. Even 
when the tasks are not so hazardous as the ones 
mentioned, they are likely to be grindingly monoto- 
nous and are carried on at a higher speed and more 
continuously than anything the Russian has before 
known. 

In the mines the hours are shorter, but the 
lack of light and air and the constant stooping posi- 
tion (depending on the mine worked) is just as 
strange. Furthermore, the Russian claims that he 
is assigned the worst seams where the work is hard- 
est and the proportion of slag is greatest. In gen- 
eral, the conditions of labor in the mines have been 
found better than in steel. ^° Nevertheless, many 
Russians, owing to the irregularity of the employ- 
ment and the underground work, prefer the steel 
industry. 



11 



^Ibid., p. 35. 

^ Ibid., p. 247. 

^^ Cf. Commons, J. R., in Charities and Commons (1909), XXI, 
p. 1051. 

^^ From 1913-1S the average number of forced idle days in the 
coal areas of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Pittsburgh was over 158. 
Stelzle, C, World Outlook, Jan., 1920, p. 38. 



22 



The Russian Immigrant 



For the larger proportion of Russians, the job is 
their first real taste of America and it is decidedly 
a bitter one. The contrast to Russia makes it diffi- 
cult for him successfully to adjust himself to the 
speed and monotony of large scale production even 
in such employments as textile or automobile manu- 
facture. Nevertheless, those who find themselves in 
mining or steel might change to other industries if 
they knew how, but the difficulties in the way appear 
formidable. In ordinary times it is no easy task to 
find work in an unfamiliar occupation. Unless the 
immigrant were particularly fortunate after his 
arrival, he must have had an anxious period of hunt- 
ing employment. The fear of joblessness and of the 
loss of savings makes him endure what he otherwise 
would not. Even in such a prosperous year as 19 19, 
Whiting Williams, a college graduate with a splen- 
did physique, had great difficulty in getting work.^^ 
How much harder it must have been for the Russian 
is indicated by the fact that hundreds were out of 
employment in Pittsburgh alone in the same year.^^ 



The Employer 

In the early stages of American industry the Rus- 
sian might have hoped at least to see his employer. 
There would have been a chance for some point of 



1- Williams, op. cit., pp. 3-10. 

13 According to testimony given to the writer by representatives 
of the International Institute, by the Russians themselves, and by 
investigators of the Inter-Church World Movement. 



Environing Economic Forces 23 

contact making for mutual understanding and co- 
operation. To-day except for vague concepts from 
hearsay and misrepresentation, the employer is an 
entirely unknown quantity to the Russian. Nor is 
this entirely one-sided. In the "absentee" type of 
corporation to which the basic industries of which 
we have been speaking belong, the employer rarely 
sees, much less knows, anything about the workmen. 
This is well illustrated in the steel industry. As the 
Inter-Church report states, "Ultimate control of 
the plants was vested in a small group of financiers 
whose relation to the producing force was remote. 
The financial group's machinery of control gave it 
full knowledge of output and dividends but neg- 
ligible information of working and living condi- 
tions." '^ 

In the investigation conducted by the writer in 
factories and mines in Eastern states, the manage- 
ment seemed to know almost nothing about the 
Russians employed. In many cases they did not 
even know how many of that nationality were on 
their books, for Poles, Finns, Jews and other races 
were lumped together. At one time the sending 
out of a questionnaire to manufacturers on the num- 
ber of Russians employed, their health, housing and 
living conditions, was considered by the writer. The 
project was abandoned on the advice of the person- 
nel departments of a number of plants, who said 
the companies themselves did not have the facts. 

^* Inter-Church Report, op. cit., p. ii. 



24 The Russian Immigrant 

The personnel superintendent of the Winchester 
Repeating Arms Co., for example, said that al- 
though that company has been employing Russians 
in all departments, they have "no statistics to show 
how many there are." A letter from the secretary 
to the Immigration Committee of the Merchants 
and Manufacturers Association of New York City, 
advised that such a questionnaire would be useless, 
as "most large employers know very little about the 
character or habits of their employees aside from 
productive ability." ^^ 

The attitude which an employer assumes towards 
the worker is partly the product of social pressure 
and in some cases seems to have its primary source 
in the organs of public opinion. At any rate, after 
the scare about the Bolsheviks had been sensation- 
ally exploited by our press, Russians began to be 
laid off right and left simply on account of their 
nationality. Harvey Anderson, formerly in charge 
of Y.M.C.A. work for Russians in America, sums 
up the general situation in 19 19 as follows: "Since 
the 'Bolshevik' regime began in Russia, the Russian 
is regarded everywhere as a 'Bolshevik' and is 
shunned. I encountered a case the other day where 
an employer got the idea that the distinguishing 
feature of a 'Bolshevik' was a beard, so he refused 
to give employment to some faithful and loyal Old 
Believers whose religious conviction does not per- 
mit them to shave. Whenever the employer has 

18 Letter to the writer from M. E. Dodge, Dec. 29, 1920. 



Environing Economic Forces 25 

found It necessary to cut down the number of em- 
ployees, the Russian has been the first to go. When 
he seeks new employment he is inevitably met with 
the suspicion that he is a 'Bolshevik' and he goes 
on hunting for a job and in his soul grows and 
grows a spirit of revolt. He begins to hate Amer- 
ica and everything American, and Is ready to believe 
anything bad about her." ^^ 

The inevitable result has been that whereas these 
men were good honest workers, they became revolt- 
ers againoL the existing order. This is expressed in 
a letter from an educated Russian of Worcester, 
Mass. : "Many thousands of Russians In this coun- 
try while they work have hardly enough to live on, 
and now that the war is ended, they are discharged 
from factories, and told 'You are a Bolshevik.' 
Many of them do not know what Bolshevism and 
what capitalism mean — but they make real Bolshe- 
viks out of them." In Akron in 1920 some Rus- 
sians even shaved their beards and used English 
names In order to get jobs as Americans. 

Representatives of several large firms frankly 
told the writer that they refused employment to 
Russians. "We can get plenty of other nationali- 
ties," said one employer, "why take Bolsheviks?" 
Unfortunately, from the standpoint of the Russian 
worker. It does not seem quite so simple or so fair. 
He comes to our country, works seven years In the 
steel plant, loses his best strength in the work, and 

^^ From an unpublished statement transmitted to the author. 



26 The Russian Immigrant 

then is laid off because the Bolsheviks seize control 
in Russia. The great majority stoically struggle on, 
but a priest told me of two who were found dead on 
the railroad track with the following note in Rus- 
sian : "We prefer death to starvation. Have slaved 
in a steel plant for seven years. Now they discharge 
us and we can't find a job." 

This discrimination against the Russian on the 
part of the employer, and lack of information, lead 
to equally absurd conclusions by the worker, who is 
led to believe that like the rich barons in Russia, 
the greedy capitalist is exploiting him for profit. 
Mr, Whiting Williams, whom we have mentioned, 
after his experience as a laborer, states that "the 
relation between the large employer and, for the 
most part, the foreign-born and foreign-speaking 
worker in the labor gangs" is expressed by the 
phrase of the workers, "Aw, w'at da hell! w'at da 
hell da companee care 'bout us?" Mr. Williams 
concludes that the astounding ignorance of the 
worker "concerning the plans and purposes, the 
aims and ideals, the character of the other human 
element in the same problem, his employer, is un- 
equaled by anything I can think of — unless it is 
his employer's ignorance of him! To each the other 
stands as the 'x' in the equation of the factory or- 
ganization." " 

Because this is true, it is all the more unfortunate 
and a potential cause of trouble that there is no 

1'' Williams, W., Collier's Weekly, July 3, 1920, p. 7. 



Environing Economic Forces 27 

department in a great many of these plants to settle 
a grievance or to give information. Mistakes occur 
in industrial life as elsewhere, and too often the 
Slav does not know how to secure redress. Even 
Mr. Williams found himself "fired" when he tried 
to secure a loan on the wages already due him in a 
steel plant. In another case he nearly lost his 
wages because he had no time card and on leaving 
the compcv.iy was unable to secure his money because 
it was not pay day.^^ These and a hundred other 
things occur with Russian workers who do not know 
English and, not having the social background to 
understand that it is partly their own fault, they 
often set it down as deliberate injustice. 

Occidents 

The feeling that the employer, like the Russian 
baron, cares nothing for the worker, receives a fur- 
ther stimulus from the prevalence of accidents and 
the absence, in many cases, of any particular effort 
on the part of the company to make permanent pro- 
vision for the injured. Although the employers' 
liability laws and safety appliances have eliminated 
both a great many accidents and also a large share 
of the injustice connected with them, there is still 
room for a great deal of improvement. In the coal 
mines alone there were 2,317 fatalities in 19 19 
and 2,260 in 1920.^^ Indeed the average death rate 

1^ Williams, W., op. cit., pp. 144 and i6i. 

1^ U. S. Bureau of Mines, Monthly Statement of Coal Mine 
Fatalities in the United States, June, 1921, p. 6. 



28 The Russian Immigrant 

from accidents in coal mining per one thousand 
workers in the United States is three times that of 
Great Britain."" The number of those who are 
merely injured in coal mining and in the iron and 
steel industry, although unknown must be far larger. 
Yet a surprising number of injured Russians still 
claim never to have received any compensation. In 
the few cases the author attempted to investigate, 
the failure seemed to be due to the ignorance of the 
Russian, his lack of legal advice, and the fact that 
he feared that action on his part might debar him 
from all chances of further employment by the same 
company. It also seems to be true that the Russian 
is indifferent to danger; he is willing to accept haz- 
ardous work and therefore is injured oftener than 
many other nationalities. Nevertheless, in common 
with most people, after he has been injured, he feels 
that he has been unfairly treated and is sometimes 
very bitter about the indifference of the company 
to his plight. This feeling seems to be shared to 
some extent by all the Russians. 

Most of the states have fairly adequate compen- 
sation laws but New Hampshire and New Jersey, 
two states in which considerable numbers of Russians 
are employed, still expressly exclude alien non-resi- 
dent dependents from compensation."^ Even in 
Pennsylvania and in New York, the Russians claim 



^^International Labor Review, vol. v, no. i, Jan., 1922, p. 140. 
21 Pamphlet of the American Association for Labor Legislation, 
Nov., 1920. 



Environing Economic Forces 29 

that since communication with Russia has been sev- 
ered following the Bolshevik control, no compensa- 
tion could be collected in most cases for wives and 
children in the homeland. The writer has listened 
to scores of cases cited by Russian priests, who were 
willing to swear to the facts, that injured men of 
their congregations had received no compensation 
in spite of the law. They, too, testify that the Rus- 
sian is Ignorant of its provisions and has scant legal 
aid. The following is merely one Illustration from 
Father Kozuboff of Hartford: "In the hospital now 
there lies a man whose legs were crushed when a 
bucket for loading coal broke loose from the chain. 
The doctor says he can never walk, yet when he 
leaves the hospital he gets nothing, for he has no 
witnesses to the accident." Whether or not such 
statements are exaggerated, they go to show that the 
Russian is a mere cog In the machine of production. 
Indeed, he does not receive the care that parts of a 
machine do. They are constantly oiled and pro- 
tected. Every possible care is taken of them, and 
when the machine is not In use a guard Is kept on the 
premises. But for the human cog, little thought is 
taken. He can over-work, eat bad food, sleep in 
rooms lU-ventllated and unsanitary — and the em- 
ployer seemingly cares nothing. When the Russian 
"lays off" the job there Is too often no human guard 
from the factory to see what can be done to help and 
protect him. If the cog is smashed to atoms or even 
only injured so that he needs patching, the accident 



30 The Russian Immigrant 

Insurance covers the costs. The cog can be replaced 
immediately without cost by a new Russian. If the 
machine is broken, it means delay in production 
and new costs. In a large steel plant visited in 
the summer of 1920, the doctor stated that an aver- 
age of one-fifth of the working force visited the dis- 
pensary every month. "Most of them come from 
accidents to their eyes. We have not yet secured 
glasses which can be worn in the intense heat of the 
blast furnace," said he. 

Now although the Russian is of a stoical tempera- 
ment and accepts these conditions with seeming in- 
difference, if one can win his confidence, his real 
thoughts can be uncovered. He feels that he is 
being treated as a mere tool; that his unknown com- 
pany employer does not care what happens to him. 

The Boss 

In contrast to the employer whom he rarely if 
ever sees, the worker is in very close and constant 
relations with one man, the boss or foreman, who 
comes more and more to represent the industry to 
him. Often he is even hired or fired by the boss 
and if he does pass through an employment depart- 
ment it is merely for a formal question or two and 
for registration on the company's books. Not only 
is the boss an ever-present reality, but he is usually 
so unlike the Russian that mutual misunderstanding 
results. 

In the great majority of factories and shops which 



Environing Economic Forces 31 

the writer has visited, the foreman for the unskilled 
alien is also a foreigner. There were German, 
Polish, Italian, Irish, Magyar, and Welsh bosses — 
Mr. Williams speaks also of Greek and Spanish. 
Too often the most conspicuous "Americanism" they 
have absorbed is profanity. Mr. Williams expresses 
it in these words, "The gang bosses, at least those 
of the labor gangs, seem to be the worst examples 
of what-the-hell philosophy." ^- That neither the 
boss nor the Russian wholly understands the other is 
but natural, for they are unlike products of different 
European backgrounds, possessing strong racial an- 
tagonisms. Sometimes all they have in common in 
the matter of language is a most meager vocabulary, 
slang English, "job" phrases pronounced with a for- 
eign accent to the accompaniment of much profan- 
ity. It is natural that when the worker is new, his 
lack of understanding is profound, hence the num- 
ber of oaths that are hurled at him is enormous. It 
is small wonder that he dislikes the boss even when 
he Is an American. H. W. Anderson, formerly in 
charge of the Y.M.C.A. work for Russians in 
America, says: 

The Russian has ever thought of the government as an 
oppressor, and he transfers his mistrust, suspicion and hate 
for the Russian government to the "boss" w^here he works, 
who represents to him America. A few days ago we wit- 
nessed a typical incident. Something had gone wrong with 
the work of some Russians. The men were not to blame, 

22 Williams, op. cit., p. i8. 



32 The Russian Immigrant 

yet the young American foreman blamed it all on the , 

, lazy . They faced the angry tirade of the fore- 



man with stolid, sullen faces and made no reply, but in their 
hearts they registered one more case against America.^^ 

This is but a typical specimen of conditions which 
are all too widely prevalent. 

It is true that some of the Russians draw a dis- 
tinction between the squad foreman who works with 
them and the boss foreman. The former shares in 
their labor and is often friendly, but they consider 
the latter as almost invariably bad, feeling that he 
deliberately makes them do work that is too difficult. 
For example, a Russian in Philadelphia said, 
"The boss makes two of us carry steel which should 
require four. If I refuse, I lose my job. Lots of 
weeks the work is so heavy I get pains in my back 
and have to lay off three days out of seven." Or 
again, in a mill in Pittsburgh, the boss, Pete, accord- 
ing to the testimony of a Russian, is a giant who 
can do the work of two ordinary men. In some- 
what exaggerated language more clearly to convey 
his meaning, he said: "The boss can lift two tons 
himself. He will watch us straining to lift a two- 
ton iron and will laugh at us and yell, 'You 

Polack, push.' We will break our backs try- 



ing and he will not lift a finger to help us." 

Occasionally the writer ran across Russians who 
did have good foremen as in the following case. 
"Bopp, our foreman, has lost an eye, and is a good 

23 From an unpublished statement transmitted to the author. 



Environing Economic Forces 33 

American. When the work Is heavy he will help 
us. He rarely swears at us, all the other bosses do." 
But even In this case, the Russian did not have any 
more friendly attitude toward the management. He 
seemed to feel that "Bopp" was good In spite of a 
grasping and dishonest company. 

The Inter-Church Report summarizes what It 
considers the grievances in the life of the Russian 
Immigrant steel worker as follows : 

Nine times out of ten he is a peasant, taking an industrial 
job for the first time. At the start, only as wages fail to 
keep him and his family as he wants them to be kept, or the 
hours break down his health, does he care much about "con- 
trolling" either wages or hours. What matters most to 
him is that if the mill is shut down, he is the first to be laid 
off; if the job is unusually hot, greasy, or heavy, he is the 
first to be set to it. He is the most arbitrarily, often 
brutally, shifted and ordered about; if he takes a lay-off, 
he is the most likely to be heavily docked, and he is the 
most likely to be kept beyond his hour with no additional 
pay. If there is sickness in his home or he is otherwise kept 
away, his excuses get the shortest shrift. If he is the butt 
of unusual prejudice in either his foreman or some fellow 
worker evinced in profanity or the penalties of always the 
nastier task, he knows least where to go for redress or how 
to speak it.'-* 

Yet the writer is convinced that aside from the 
fact that the Russian is usually the marginal worker, 

24 Inter-Church Report, op. cit., pp. 135-136. The above quota- 
tion includes certain other foreign workers besides the Russian.) 



34 The Russian Immigrant 

most of these grievances arise directly from his rela- 
tions with the boss who to the worker typifies the 
industry. 

For his Master's thesis at Chicago University, 
J. S. Cole ^^ made a careful study of 112 single Rus- 
sians, the majority of whom were either employed 
in the stock yards of Chicago or in stables, or were 
temporarily out of work. He reported that they 
were very bitter against the boss, their attitude be- 
ing summed up in the following remarks ; 

"Before war, very good; but now all, no mat- 
ter what nationality, laid off on least excuse. If 
horse no can pull wagon, put on another horse. If 
man no can pull truck, lay him off." 

"Foreman very severe; sometimes lay off day for 
being minute late. Rush so at work that you almost 
faint. Treatment worse now since it is very easy 
to replace men." 

"Boss very hard. Fired one man, he was in his 
place two minutes before whistle blew to enter 
shop." 

"Bosses very unreasonable. One man left truck 
to get drink and boss fired him. Have to bribe boss 
to keep job." 

"Too strict about time; if one minute late, dock 
one-half hour. Getting worse all the time. Often 
work so hard get weak and when tell foreman he 
says we are drunk." 

25 Cole, J. S. R. (Chicago, 1919), unpublished study transmitted 
to the author. 



Environing Economic Forces 35 

"Treat Russian like dog." 

After talking with several hundred Russians In 
mining and steel plants, the writer found the re- 
sponses much the same; ninety per cent or more fear 
and hate the boss. Even when ignorant of English 
they are all familiar with the common epithet he 
hurls at them, "You Polack." The dis- 
regard of all racial distinctions simply accentuates 
the insult. In their eyes the boss is as autocratic 
and domineering as the Tsar's officials. And so, 
during working hours, the chief social bond affect- 
ing the worker's effort is despotic power and a fear- 
inspired obedience. This is not true of all the Rus- 
sian workers, but there is something of this feeling 
among a great many. It is tempered by the fact 
that they are free to leave the employment per- 
manently at the end of a day's work, but in that case 
the job is gone and savings begin to dwindle. The 
Russians expressed their feelings to the writer in 
these terms — to cite two examples : 

"The boss is worse than the Tsar's officials; they 
would flog us and let us go, he drives us to a slow 
death." 

"If he were good, would not be boss. Boss 
like dog, always snapping and swearing at every- 
body." 

These reactions in the mind of the Russian show 
how httle friendship he has for the boss. No doubt 
part of this is inevitable in the relationship which 
must exist between the one directing a task and a 



36 The Russian Immigrant 

group of Ignorant foreigners who are doing the ac- 
tual disagreeable work, yet at present It does seem 
that the relationship Is unnecessarily antagonistic. 
Apparently little or no attempt Is made In our basic 
Industries to give adequate Instruction to the fore- 
men or bosses in the art of human relations, and as 
a result the Russian does not see the good side of 
the management or of America In the factory or 
mine. Instead, the contrast to his former free peas- 
ant toil In the fields eats into his soul; the boss has 
Instilled the caustic of resentment. He is the task- 
master who drives him on at a killing pace, who 
exploits him — he seems to represent America. 

The Labor Union 

The Russian toiling at the bottom of our indus- 
trial ladder has no chance to join the ordinary trade 
union which is jealously watched over by the skilled 
or semi-skilled. Even for the exceptional Russian 
of ability, the initiation fee is likely to be higher 
than he cares to pay. One of the educated Russians, 
a skillful carpenter, told me he could not afford to 
pay the initiation fee, nor did he care to serve as an 
apprentice at the low rate of pay required by the 
Union before he would be eligible for the better 
position. He preferred to work as a non-union man. 

For the rank and file of the Russians working 
outside of the mines, there is little opportunity to 
join a labor group other than the I.W.W., or the 
purely Russian political organization known as "The 



Environing Economic Forces 37 

Union of Russian Workers," which will be treated 
in another chapter. The head of the Union's Fed- 
eration in Akron stated that although there were 
hundreds of Russians in the rubber plants, there 
was not a single one in the Union. 

On the other hand, as we have already noted, the 
Russian in his native land has been used to coopera- 
tion. He is therefore willing and eager to join with 
his fellows in a class organization. Furthermore, 
in industrial conflicts his idealism and loyalty to the 
union even at great cost to himself are well known. 
No doubt the most important reason for this is that 
he feels the bad conditions under which he is work- 
ing and that he has less to lose, but there is still 
another reason: he is used to hardship and coopera- 
tive effort and will endure to the end if the group 
will thereby gain. This was shown in the great an- 
thracite coal strike of 1902, in the strike in the Chi- 
cago slaughter houses in 1904, in the textile strike 
in Massachusetts and the steel strike in Pennsylvania 
in 1919.^^ The attitude of the Russians in the steel 
industry as an American labor organizer, W. Z. 
Foster, views it, follows : 

He has that group idea very strongly developed. In his 
own country individualism plays a small part. He is 
labeled and tagged and oppressed, and he is classed, and his 
psychology is pretty simple over there. He knows what 
he is, and if there is any possible chance for him to do any- 
thing, he feels that it is as a group, not as an individual. 

2^ Cf. Balch, op. cit., pp. 290-291. 



38 The Russian Immigrant 

He comes over here and he seems to respond to an appeal 
better than Americans do. But he is very materialistic in 
his demands. You know you can convince the Americans 
and you can hold an organization for years in a plant with- 
out getting a cent of benefit out of it directly. But the 
foreigner you can't hold that way. He comes in for in- 
crease of wages and shortening of hours. He comes in 
quite readily, but if you don't get him the results, he drops 
away quite readily also. 

Then a peculiar thing happens. When the fight occurs, 
he is a splendid fighter. He has the American beaten when 
it comes to a fight. I don't say that in criticism of the 
American, but I think it is due to the position he occupies 
in the industry. The American usually holds the good job, 
and he has a home half paid for, and he is full of responsi- 
bility ; whereas the foreigner is more foot-loose ; has a poor 
job anyway, and he doesn't feel that so much is at stake. 

He will stick, while the American will go back to work. 
That is what happened in the mills just now. When the 
fight occurs the foreigner displays a wonderful amount of 
idealism, a wonderful amount of stick-to-it-iveness that is 
altogether dissimilar to the intensely materialistic spirit he 
shows in his union transactions.^^ 

The Bulletins issued every few days by the Na- 
tional Committee for Organizing Iron and Steel 
Workers were printed in Slavic and Polish as well 
as English. The Russian workers usually had some 
one who could read either one of these languages or 
could translate from the English. The character 
of the text was naturally not such as to make them 

27 Inter-Church Report, op. cit., pp. 162-163. 



Environing Economic Forces 39 

look favorably on our capitalists or the American 
press. Several of the Russian workers furnished 
copies and the following is from Number 13, dated 
October 23, 19 19: 

"Trade Unions are mighty in power, but their 
power is not like the power of the Steel Trust. The 
Steel Trust has millions and millions of dollars to 
fight with; the labor unions have no money or very 
httle, but they have millions and millions of men.'* 

Bulletin Number 12, dated October 20, states 
that the Homestead steel plant, in absolute contra- 
diction to the newspaper accounts, is closed instead 
of "running 'practically' at capacity." 

These bulletins, together with inflammatory 
speeches at those meetings which were permitted, as 
well as the action of the constabulary, to be treated 
later, increased the hostility of the Russians towards 
America. When the strike was lost, the Russians 
complained about the Union as useless and of Amer- 
ican workers as traitors for going back before it 
was ended. "We didn't start the strike," said one 
to me, "Americans are at the head of it. They told 
us that we would be traitors to our fellow workmen 
if we did not support it. Now we have done it and 
the newspapers call us 'reds,' 'I.W.W.'s,' 'Bolshe- 
viks.' Us they refuse to take back, but the Amer- 
icans get their jobs." 

One of these men whom the writer visited was 
refused employment following the strike. It so hap- 
pened that his tenement house was right next to the 



40 The Russian Immigrant 

steel plant. After two months' search he found a 
job in a mill one hour away by street car. He 
worked eleven hours a day one week and thirteen 
hours a night the next. On his night shift fifteen 
hours were spent daily at his work and traveling to 
and fro. It is small wonder that he was bitterly 
discouraged and blamed the union and America. 
His wife claimed that they went to church when 
they could, and before they had become disillusioned 
by the heartlessness of the corporation they had 
believed in America. An American flag and a relig- 
ious picture over the bed seemed to confirm her 
statement. She concluded, "We now know America 
means money. We Russians are only like flies, too 
small — company doesn't care." 

The United Mine Workers of America is one of 
the few industrial unions accepting all who work in 
and about the mines for membership. Consequently, 
nearly all the Russians engaged in the coal industry 
belong to it, although their exact membership is not 
known, all Slavs being classed together. According 
to the union officials, the Russians make very faith- 
ful members. The weekly journal of the Union 
contains three pages in Slovak. While, as many 
writers claim, the unions do a great deal toward 
Americanizing the foreigner, ^^ it is not strange that 
they should represent the coal corporations in a bad 
light. The United Mine Workers oppose I. W. W.- 

28BaIch, op. cit., p. 292, and article by Charles Stelzle, World 
Outlook, Jan., 1920, p. 27. 



Environing Economic Forces 41 

ism, Bolshevism, and radicalism, but they do not 
hesitate to acquaint their members with what they 
consider unjust in our industrial order. For ex- 
ample, one number of their journal ^^ has articles 
entitled "Harrowing Story of Fiendish Cruelty 
Practiced on Families of Non-Union Miners at Cru- 
cible, Pa,," "Cruel Discrimination by Harlan 
County Operators," "If a Coal Miner Is Guilty, Is 
an Operator Guilty for Doing the Very Same 
Thing?" "More Misrepresentation," "More of That 
Propaganda." These articles attack the corpora- 
tions and statements of such men as Judge Gary 
and Senator Pomerene of Ohio. On the other hand, 
the same number says much about the honesty of 
the American people as a whole and proclaims the 
fact that the miners "believe in and uphold Amer- 
ican ideals." In spite of this the United Mine 
Workers of America are not making the Russians 
enthusiastic supporters of our nation, they see too 
much of the dark side. Moreover, they do not often 
mingle with the American men. As several of the 
Russian and Slavic organizers, interviewed, said: 
"The Russians are loyal to the Union. They pay 
their dues well, but they stick together and take 
little interest in the meetings which are usually run 
by Americans or leaders of other nationalities. We 
are content if they pay their dues." If this is true 
even in the United Mine Workers organization, to 
which a great many of the Russians belong, it can 

-^Jan. 15, 1920 (appeared during a strike period). 



42 The Russian Immigrant 

readily be understood that, taken as a whole, the 
social impress of the Union on the Russian is not 
great. He accepts it where he has the chance, but it 
does not vitally concern him; he is an outsider, a 
passive participant in its activities. His relation to 
the Union at least teaches him something of demo- 
cratic government, for he has an equal vote with 
his American fellow workers even though he other- 
wise plays a minor part. 

Wages 

As would be expected with a marginal worker, the 
Russian is receiving a low rate of pay. Judge Gary 
admits that 70,000 men in the steel industry are 
receiving the lowest rate.^° We have already indi- 
cated that the Russians are in this class. The rate 
of pay was "less than enough for the average 
American family's subsistence," ^^ according to the 
budgets of Professor Ogburn, Professor Chapin, the 
New York Factory Commission, the New York 
Board of Estimate, all brought up to date to con- 
form to the rise in the cost of living.^^ But in the 
matter of money wages, the Russian is vastly better 
off than he was in his home land, and this is one of 
the big compensations to him for the hard condi- 
tions. If he can but save enough, some day he will 
return to Russia as a comparatively wealthy peas- 

30 Inter-Church Report, op. cit., p. 5. 

31 It must be remembered that the majority of Russians were 
single or without their wives in America. 

22 Ibid., pp. 225-263, 92-95. 



Environing Economic Forces 43 

ant. If that is not his ambition, he is able to send 
amounts, which will seem fabulous to them, back to 
his relatives or he can send for his wife and chil- 
dren to join him here. 

The study of the Immigration Commission in 
1909 ^^ showed that 2,819 foreign-born Russians re- 
ceived an average wage of $2.06 a day; this was 
three cents below the average of all the foreign-born. 
The 248 of the second generation received only an 
average of $1.98, which was 35 cents below the gen- 
eral average of native-born of foreign fathers. This 
may be partially explained on the supposition that 
the children of the Russians are younger because 
Russian immigration is newer. 

The war increased wages tremendously; the or- 
dinary day laborer who had been getting two to 
three dollars a day (in Bridgeport, Youngstown, 
Cleveland and other centers) during the war 
reached as high as forty or more cents an hour. By 
means of a large output and overtime rates some 
of the men received as high as fifty dollars a week. 
But after the war the earnings of Russians began to 
drop again. A study of 95 single Russians in Chi- 
cago in 19 19 revealed the fact that they were 
making from 12 to 30 dollars a week. The over- 
whelming majority and the average number earned 
23 dollars. Of 112 Russians studied in this same 
report, 10, or 9.4 per cent, were out of employment 
and had been so from three weeks to four months. 

23 Abstract, vol. i, table 26, op. cit., p. 371. 



44 



The Russian Immigrant 



They claimed discrimination on account of their 
nationality.^* In Pittsburgh in 1920 the writer 
found that the average Russian workman received 
from $25-30 a week, but this does not take into 
account time lost from shutdown, sickness and other 
causes. In the next chapter we shall discuss the 
standard of living which the Russian maintains. 
The amount he saves, however, because of his 
frugality and thrift is at least a partial indication of 
whether his pay is more than enough to meet the 
standards he is willing to endure. 

No matter how much the Russians were earn- 
ing, we know that a good many were saving money. 
From July i, 19 13 to June 30, 19 14, 546,775 postal 
money orders totaling $13,469,839.02 were sent 
to Russia or an average of about $24.60 per or- 
der.^^ Because of the outbreak of the war, the 
amount in subsequent years was not significant. 
The statistics of the money sent through the Russian 
Consul General in New York are : 

Average 
Remittance 
for the 
For Deposit For Friends Total Two Years 

1916 $359,7"-55 $ 38,3"-76 $ 395.023.31 $151 

1917 776,265.48 283,993.95 1,060,259.43 

But since some send twice in the year, the consul 
believes that the yearly average per person making 
remittances in 19 16 was much more and in 19 17, 
nearly double. The Russian Embassy undertook an 

2* Cole, unpublished study, cf. supra, p. 34. 

35 U. S. Post Office Dept., Annual Reports, 1914, p. 360. 



Environing Economic Forces 45 

investigation of the financial condition of the Rus- 
sians in America in November, 19 18 under the direc- 
tion of Professor C. V. Gayman who visited the 
various colonies and secured first-hand information 
from Russian individuals and banks. His report 
though never published contains financial estimates 
of value. He found that the average amount 
of money per individual sent to Russia yearly 
through private banks was $250. Now of course 
these figures include the Jews who are more prosper- 
ous than the average Russian laborer. Moreover, 
Mr. Gayman believes that they represent only one 
quarter of the total Russian group. Even so, they 
indicate a probability that the other Russians were 
also saving. 

At the second general {Syezd) meeting of Russian 
organizations held in New York City on the 13th 
of December, 19 18, eighty of the two hundred 
or more delegates had an average of $900 in the 
bank. The others did not give the amount of their 
savings. Of course all the delegates represented 
some organization and were presumably above the 
average Russian working man. Mr. Gayman esti- 
mates that Russians without families are able to 
deposit $250 each year. Mr. Vilchur states that in 
19 17 the average Russian was saving from 20-25 
dollars a month; ^'^ but since the war this has been 
greatly reduced. Mr. Cole in his Chicago report 
found that out of 112 Russians, all of whom had 

3s Vilchur, M., The Russians in America, op. cit., p. 68 . 



46 The Russian Immigrant 

been saving before the war, only twenty were able 
to do so in 19 19. In traveling among the Russian 
colonies, the writer found conditions varying in this 
respect, but in general, most of the single Russians 
save something. All claim that it is much less than 
before the war. This is in large measure due to 
higher standards of living acquired during the period 
of high war wages, to lowered wages, and still more, 
to irregularities of employment. The steel strike 
exhausted the savings of thousands of Russians, 
and the fact that the coal miners were working but 
a few hours a day during most of the spring of 
1920, also had its effect on the conditions as the 
writer saw them. The banks interviewed claimed 
that single Russians who had accounts, saved about 
$20 a month, but they admitted that those who 
patronized the banks were only a small percentage 
of the total Russian community. Data which seem 
to cast some doubt on the reliability of the consensus 
of opinion already given, are found in the results 
of the careful investigation made by the Ford Motor 
Company in 19 17. Among 1138 Russian work- 
men, 917 had no bank account although this company 
has the reputation of paying high wages. ^^ It is 
probable that some were not banking their money 
and in any case 229 were paying for the purchase 
of homes. The average amount on deposit, of the 
221 who had bank accounts, was $56^' It must 

2" From a personal statement to the author by the head of the 
Welfare Department of the Ford Company. 



Environing Economic Forces 47 

not be forgotten, however, that even not counting 
those who were buying a home, over half had no 
money in the bank even in a period of war wages. 
Since the statistics record 715 as married, it may 
be that those constituting this half were supporting 
families either here or abroad. 

Banks 

Formerly, many of the Russians kept their money 
with private individuals, mostly Jews, but today they 
more frequently deposit it in some sort of private 
banking institution. In every large city there are 
a large number of small "Russian" banks operated 
usually by Jews. New ones open and others close 
every year so that the number in any city at a given 
time is difficult to ascertain. In Detroit, for in- 
stance, 22 banks for Russians were opened during 
the war.^* The activities of these banks cover a 
wide range. They may, i-accept savings, 2— buy, 
sell and exchange Russian rubles, 3— send money to 
Russia, 4-buy and sell Liberty Bonds and Russian 
Loans, 5— sell steamship tickets, 6— act as notaries 
public for affidavits required for military service, 
passports, or steamship tickets, 7-give information 
and help on any of the following: 

(a) recommend doctors and lawyers, 

(b) lend money or write insurance, 

(c) give addresses of relatives in America, 

2^ Mr. Cayman's investigation. Cf. supra, p. 45. 



48 The Russian Immigrant 

(d) give addresses of Russian- American firms, 

(e) find the location of refugees, runaways, or prisoners, 

(f) typewrite letters, 

(g) send money to friends in America. 

These banks resort to all manner of practices to 
get patronage. They advertise in all the Russian 
papers, they locate In a Russian section of the city, 
they use the flashiest American methods of street 
advertising, they keep open holidays until nine In 
the evening, and will often employ agents in nearby 
places where there Is no bank. But besides these 
methods they try In other ways to make themselves 
Indispensable to the Russian. Many of them, as for 
example, Salynak In Cleveland keep the addresses 
of all the Russians In the city. Others permit their 
bank room to be used for public lectures and meet- 
ings In Russian, which will draw the colony to their 
places of business. Sometimes they will go to the 
extent of arranging a lecture. ^^ Occasionally they 
provide free billiards to attract customers. Mr. 
Gayman says that he knows of a bank In Cleveland 
which has even permitted prostitutes to occupy the 
basement In order that the bank may draw a still 
wider clientele of victims. 

It Is obvious that banks which are operating in 
these ways are not In the business for anything ex- 
cept profit. Many of them go through voluntary 
bankruptcy in order to secure large secret profits. In 

39 The Spiri Bank tried to get Professor Gayman to lecture on 
South America in their bank. 



Environing Economic Forces 49 

19 17 alone, in Chicago there were fourteen of these 
failures/" The Russian immigrant has rarely had 
experience with banking facilities and thinks that if 
his money is returned to him, that is all he should 
desire. The banks take advantage of this fact and 
rarely pay interest, besides taking an excessive profit 
on buying, selling, or exchanging Russian and Ameri- 
can money. In every one the writer visited, the 
quotations were always several points dearer to the 
customer than in the reputable American institutions. 
The investigation conducted by the New York 
World and printed in that newspaper during Decem- 
ber 1920, also corroborated that fact. One bank in 
San Francisco even went the length of giving out 
counterfeit rubles to those returning to Russia. 

Sometimes the banks accept money to send to Rus- 
sia when they know it cannot be delivered, as for 
example, in territory occupied by the Germans or 
the Bolsheviks. Methods illustrated by the follow- 
ing show the criminal practices sometimes resorted 
to. Through its own lawyers, a bank may spread the 
rumor little by little that it Is Insolvent. A run 
on the bank occurs and the establishment closes its 
doors. The lawyers having now won the confidence 
of the Russian workmen depositors, obligingly offer 
to get back fifty per cent of their money. Most 
of the Russians fall Into the trap and the lawyers 
then divide the remainder with the bank. Accord- 

*o Mr. Cayman's investigation. Cf. supra, p. 45. 



50 The Russian Immigrant 

ing to the study conducted by Mr. Gayman, there 
were in 19 19 suits against such banks to the amount 
of two million dollars in Baltimore alone. Although 
this figure must certainly include action on behalf 
of many who were not Russian Slavs, it does give 
some idea of the extent of the exploitation. The 
worst feature of the matter is that many of the 
Russians when they have been thus exploited feel 
that it is the fault of America, and they treasure 
up this added grievance, while in reality it may be a 
foreigner who has done the deed. "The people of 
foreign countries," said the Hon. C. J. Keenan, 
Deputy Appraiser of the Port of New York, 
"generally look upon a bank as a government 
institution, which accounts for the practice so preva- 
lent among them of patronizing private banking 
institutions after they come to this country. An 
enterprising foreign-born citizen will oftentimes, 
after reaching a certain stage of prosperity, open a 
bank with the legend 'State Bank' over the door." ^^ 
Naturally whatever happens in this bank is at- 
tributed to the government. 

The reason why the Russians do not, to any 
extent, patronize our sound financial institutions 
such as national or postal savings banks is that most 
of these do not have Russian interpreters and do not 
try to reach the Russian through foreign language 
advertising. In cities where a large bank has at- 

*i Davis, Immigration and Americanization (Boston, 1920), 
p. 730. 



Environing Economic Forces $i 

tempted to secure Russian business In these ways 
it has usually succeeded and some have in the aggre- 
gate very large deposits from such sources. 

But it seems probable that more Russians have 
been exploited by dishonest agencies than have been 
helped by reliable banks. On the whole, the experi- 
ence of the Russian with financial institutions here 
has not been so favorable as to increase his respect 
and admiration for America. 

Conditions on the Farms 

Here and there throughout America are to be 
found Russians who have either broken away from 
the industrial world or else have gone directly into 
agriculture. The conditions confronting them have 
often been severe at the start, but, with a fair chance, 
their love of the soil and untiring industry have 
carried them through. For example, the colony of 
Stundists in North Dakota now numbers over 
10,000. They even have their own little towns, one 
of which is named after Kiev, in Russia. Their ven- 
ture has become a marked success and the colony is 
deeply loyal to America. 

There are other settlements in South Dakota, 
California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. Flor- 
ida, Ohio, Indiana and Michigan also have a few. 
In Virginia there is a colony of about fifty families, 
nearly every one of which has one thousand dollars 
in the bank and some have property worth fifty to 



52 The Russian Immigrant 

seventy thousand dollars.*^ Most of the families 
own their own houses which are built after the Amer- 
ican style. 

The attempts at farming have not all been suc- 
cessful, it is true. Where the soil has been very 
poor or in cases of deception and fraud, the Russian 
has gone back to industry. To cite but one instance, 
a Russian workman in California writing to a gov- 
ernment bureau about his experience said, "I do not 
dream of buying a farm any more. I have tried it 
twice." The first time he was swindled out of his 
money with a forged document. The second time, 
a seemingly official "Russian American agent" in Salt 
Lake City who showed fine specimens of fruit and 
vegetables, and "photographs of good cattle and 
splendid fields," offered this land at $25 an acre. 
So he with other Russians sold their houses and 
bought the property. 

When we arrived we found a waterless desert. Several 
returned immediately seeing their mistake but about thirty 
families remained, tilling the soil and suffering hunger. 
Soon they saw what they had planted did not grow, and 
were obliged to leave everything and go to the nearest cities 
in order to earn money. That is what happens to the Rus- 
sian people in America.*^ 

Some of the Russians are more shrewd and send 



^2 Mr. Cayman's investigation. Cf. supra., p. 45. 

*2 From a letter written to the Governmental Information Bureau 
of the Committee on Public Information, of which the writer has a 
copy. 



Environing Economic Forces 53 

one of their number to see the property before pur- 
chasing it, but even then they occasionally are 
cheated through legal technicalities. 

Those Russians who do locate on good soil 
usually believe in America. The contrast with the 
tyrannical conditions in Russia is so great that they 
are happy. M. I. Wolkoff, a Russian professor in 
the College of Agriculture of the University of 
Illinois, testifies that the Russians on the land are 
"the most contented" of any in America. "They 
are much better off financially than their city coun- 
trymen, and perhaps this is one of the chief rea- 
sons." " Undoubtedly another is that they are free 
to work as they please and are engaged in an occu- 
pation which they like. On the land, moreover, 
although somewhat isolated from Americans since 
they tend to settle in groups, they at least see a 
favorable side of our country. It is therefore to 
be regretted that those engaged in agriculture are 
but a small fraction of the number here. Russian 
authorities estimate that over 90 per cent of the 
Russians in the United States are working in our 
industries and mines. *^ The very fact that the Rus- 
sians can be made to like America so easily if they 
have a fair chance, together with the fact that we 
sorely need agricultural workers, makes it seem all 
the more deplorable that little is done to assist them 



** Letter to the author. 

*5 The Secretary to the Russian Consul General, E. I. Hourwich, 
M. Vilchur, and others. 



54 The Russian Immigrant 

to become farmers or to make them more contented 
in industry. 

Conclusion 

In this chapter we have been describing the reac- 
tions of the typical Russian worker. It is true, 
there are some industries and some instances even 
in steel and coal mining where the Russian is happy 
and successful in his work. But as we have seen, 
the majority are plunged into an environment to- 
tally at variance with their European background. 
The economic forces in the situation provide little 
outlet for their legitimate instinctive responses. 
Especially does their situation give little opportunity 
for what Giddings calls the "desire for recognition" 
or for what McDougall speaks of as self-assertion 
and Thorndike as mastery. The lowest of the labor 
group, they feel that regardless of how well or faith- 
fully they work there is no opportunity for them to 
rise; that they will always be looked down on by 
Americans. This fact, and the total absence of in- 
formation about the men higher up, together with a 
growing conviction that their human side is totally 
disregarded, is what Russian workers have so often 
tried to express to the writer. The solitary favor- 
able factor, the amount of the wage, is too often 
destroyed by exploiting or dishonest banks or agen- 
cies which swindle the hard working and thrifty ones 
out of their earnings. It is true, moreover, that as 



Environing Economic Forces 55 

fast as they adopt American standards, their margin 
of savings dwindles or disappears. 

American Industry has rendered a tremendous 
service In giving employment to aliens from other 
lands where poverty, disease and tyranny prevail, 
and in turning out more goods than any other 
nation and thus enriching the entire world. Yet we 
must remember that the great structure of American 
industry has been built upon the brawn, indeed, the 
very lives of foreigners. Business men and writers 
agree that Americans would hardly be willing at any 
price to do the work these foreign-born are doing. 
Since we sorely need what they have to give, is it 
any more than just that the economic forces which 
condition their success as workers and their well- 
being as men should be a help rather than a hin- 
drance? 



CHAPTER IV 

THE RUSSIAN IN HIS HOME ENVIRONMENT 

We have gla-nced briefly at the influences which 
mold the Russian's life in the economic world. As 
we turn now to his social environment, one of the 
outstanding facts is that he is effectively cut off from 
most of our own contacts with American life. 

Isolation 

In nearly every city the Russians live in a group 
by themselves. When they first come to a com- 
munity they naturally gravitate to the poorest sec- 
tions where rents are cheapest. A process of segre- 
gation results, for race prejudice, strange customs, 
and language barriers all make the American loath 
to live close to these Slavic immigrants. Hetero- 
geneous America has, to some extent, a social strati- 
fication based on likenesses in income and nationality. 
Once a district has begun to be invaded by the Rus- 
sians, Americans avoid it and other Russians follow 
where their own kind already are. Usually the Rus- 
sian-speaking Jews settle in a locality first and are 
followed by the Russian Slavs. Thus Pittsburgh 
has her Soho District and the neighborhood around 
Pennsylvania i\.venue and Mulberry Street. Even 
in the mining towns, the Russian shacks tend to 

56 



The Russian in His Home Environment 57 

crowd together into a definite group. Like follows 
like. This sociological law is as true to-day as it 
was when the ancient maxim about "birds of a 
feather" first found expression. The Russian dis- 
trict is peopled almost entirely by the foreign-born, 
and whether it be housing accommodations, food 
supplies, or medical aid that the immigrant seeks, he 
is likely to meet the foreigner almost exclusively. 
Yet his impressions and opinion of America become 
deeply affected by his experience in these "alien" 
centers. 

Housing 

Housing conditions vary according to the colony. 
In the agricultural districts, where the Russians are 
not migratory workers, they usually own their own 
dwellings. Many of these houses may be favorably 
compared with those of Americans. In the mining 
communities the Russians rent and occasionally buy 
small houses. In the study of Russian households 
which was made by the U. S. Immigration Commis- 
sion in 1909,^ out of 83 studied only one house was 
owned by the occupant. Since then, however, the 
percentage may have increased considerably. For 
instance, among 50 Russian families investigated in 
Los Angeles in 191 5, 26 owned their own homes. ^ 
The average value was about two thousand dollars. 
In 1917 in Detroit, among the 1160 Russian em- 

^ Abstract, vol. i, table 89, op. cit., p. 467. 

~ Sokoloflf, L., The Russians in Los Angeles (Los Angeles, 1918), 
p. 6. 



58 The Russian Immigrant 

ployees of the Ford plant, eighteen owned their own 
homes and 229 were buying theirs — a fact which is 
considered exceptional. As is usually the case where 
the tenants are the owners, the houses are in better 
repair, are cleaner and more sanitary than rented 
ones, possibly because those who buy are the more 
progressive foreigners. The great majority of Rus- 
sians, however, still live in rented rooms in tenement 
houses. 

Because overcrowding is common in the home- 
land, Russians are willing to accept similar or worse 
conditions here. In the United States Immigration 
Commission's study, ^ out of 75 Russian households 
there was an average of 2.85 persons per sleeping 
room, the general average for the total foreign-born 
being 2.53. Mr. Cole in his Chicago study of 1919* 
found that only 35 per cent of the single Russians 
and 18 per cent of the family Russians had in their 
sleeping rooms the 400 cubic feet of air per person 
required by the city ordinance. In the same report 
he states that out of 30 apartments occupied by Rus- 
sians there was an average of 7.2 individuals living 
in an average apartment of 4.3 rooms. Eleven of 
these were front apartments, while 14 were in the 
rear; four occupied a whole floor and one was in the 
center. Sixty of 85 rooms had only one window 
each, 23 had two, one had four, and one alcove room 
had none. Approximately half were so dark or 

2 Abstract, vol. i, table 72, op. cit., p. 430. 
* Cf. supra, chap, iii, p. 34. 



The Russian in His Home Environment 59 

gloomy that on a bright day one could not read in 
the center of the room. Eighteen families had 
toilets in their own apartments. Eleven had hall 
toilets, shared by eight to nineteen neighbors, and 
one had the toilet in the yard, which was also used 
by twelve outsiders. Only two of the thirty had a 
bath tub; in one of these cases the tub was used for 
laundry purposes. The author's investigation in the 
various Russian communities showed that the over- 
whelming number of Russians are living in the worst 
type of tenement apartments. These have but few 
windows and no baths. The homes occupied by Rus- 
sian workers employed at the Ford plant in Detroit 
in 19 1 7 were an exception. Out of 1160, 978 had 
good homes, 157 fair and 25 poor.® As the chief 
standard here considered, however, was cleanliness, 
and as the Ford plant attracts the best type of 
worker, this does not necessarily imply that there 
was no overcrowding or that these cases are typical. 
The homes seen in Pittsburgh are perhaps a fairer 
sample. In one apartment of three rooms, a Rus- 
sian family of five was paying $17 a month. This 
was to be increased to $20 on May i, 1920. There 
was one inside room where all the family slept, 
which was entirely without windows and was heated 
by an ill-smelling gas stove. The second room was 
used by five boarders, each of whom paid six dollars 
a month for the privilege. The other was a kitchen, 
laundry, and living room all in one. In one apart- 

* From an investigation made by the Ford Company in 1917. 



6o The Russian Immigrant 

ment of four rooms in a frame tenement near the 
steel mills the family, consisting of father, mother, 
and four children, slept in one room and seven men 
slept in the other three. All the windows were 
closed, and the floor served as a common spitoon. 
The rent for the bare dilapidated rooms without 
heat was $ 1 8 a month. Large cracks in the wall were 
stuffed with rags, a motley array of clothes was 
hanging in the room to dry. This was representative 
of many apartments in Pittsburgh.® 

Michael M. Davis in his study of Immigrant 
Health and the Community for the Carnegie Amer- 
icanization studies describes the various types of 
tenements inhabited by foreigners and concludes, 
"Wretched and unsanitary housing is not the immi- 
grants' responsibility alone. The native American 
must bear a large share of the blame." He gives 
a fair picture of the Russian huts in some of the 
mining districts: "The coal and iron mining regions 
of the country to which so many of the Finns and 
Slavic peoples turn, show some of our worst housing 
conditions. Shacks are built both by individuals 
and by mining companies close to mine shafts, pits 
and coke ovens. Tin cans, tar paper, and old boards 
furnish building materials for crazy shelters. Into 
one or more small rooms crowd the large families 
of the workmen. Toilets are either absent, or else 



® According to the statement of the Russian worker at the Inter- 
national Institute. The writer, himself, saw at least ten of this 
description, out of forty or more visited. 



The Russian in His Home Environment 6i 

miserable privies are erected and neglected. Out- 
door pumps furnish water, and the ground surface 
serves as a sewer." ^ 

In some construction and laboring work the com- 
panies still provide barracks for the men. Although 
they vary considerably, perhaps the following quota- 
tion describing foreign bunk-houses which sometimes 
contained 36 men in 3-tier bunks, from Francis A. 
Kellor, the secretary of the Inter-Racial Council, is 
typical. "These are rather dark, having been fin- 
ished in creosote to keep down the vermin. Some 
are heated with stoves, all built upon posts, not very 
clean — and represent an outlay of $20 per employee 
housed, exclusive of ground and ground improve- 
ments. There is a sink outside with sewer connec- 
tions for slops, and shower baths and toilets at the 
end of each row." * Several college graduates who 
worked in the lumber camps of Washington in 1920 
gave similar descriptions but added that the bar- 
racks were never cleaned, so that a shovel would 
have been more effective than a broom. Where 
they worked, moreover, there were no shower baths. 
The Russian priest in Cleveland even tells of one 
of his families which lives in a freight car, and of 
his christening a baby born there. The writer has 
interviewed several groups of single Russians who 
were living in similar lodgings, but these are excep- 
tional. In every such case they were working for 

"^ From a manuscript copy transmitted to the author. 
* The Immigrants in America Revietu, April, 1916. 



$2 The Russian Immigrant 

the railroad and when they left the company's em- 
ploy had to leave their domicile. 

The accommodations of Russians in New York 
are perhaps more varied than in most other cities. 
But if one cares to visit the throbbing, dusty district 
of lower Second Avenue and has the courage to 
enter one of the small side doors and to climb a 
dark, narrow stairway of two flights, he can see one 
type. The plaster is cracked and here and there are 
spots where it has broken off, thus adding to the 
dust on the floor. The apartment consists of one 
room about ten by fourteen feet and an alcove seven 
by six feet shut off by heavy curtains and containing 
a double bed. The room has two windows opening 
on a fire escape, but the alcove bedroom has none. 
For this room — including only the bare walls and 
the sink — eleven dollars a month are paid. The 
small coal stove, the few chairs, a cheap chiffonier 
and the bed, all belong to the family. Of course 
there is no toilet except the one in the hall which 
is shared by the other families. The apartments 
on Cherry Street are in a poorer locality, the refuse 
on the streets is scattered about, and the saloons 
still sell cheap liquor.® While some of the apart- 
ments are worse than those already described, the 
majority are larger, but have more dark rooms and 
a generous assortment of lodgers who fill up the 
extra space. 

In Boston the living conditions of the Russians 

^ February, 1921. 



The Russian in His Home Environment 63 

resemble those we have described; the rooms and 
corridors are dark, with little ventilation and much 
overcrowding. There is the usual common toilet 
and in some cases the apartments do not even have 
running water. One Russian, speaking before the 
Volstead Act became operative, expressed his reac- 
tion to the conditions by saying, "We don't see 
anything but saloons, and factories, and bad housing 
in America." 

There are, of course, communities where the 
housing conditions are much better, such as those 
we have mentioned in California and Detroit. But 
it is obvious that the vast majority of places present 
a decided contrast to the villages of Russia. There, 
in spite of dirt, at least the open fields were near 
and sunshine and fresh air abundant. The priest in 
Hartford reports that some of the more energetic 
Russians in his locality are so desirous of getting 
reasonable lodgings in the country that they will 
rent places in New Hampshire, thus necessitating 
three changes of electric cars in reaching their work. 
Besides this they must get up at four in the morn- 
ing and do not return till nearly ten at night; but 
each one has a little garden which adds to the at- 
traction of the Sunday holiday. The majority ac- 
cept the bad housing as one of the handicaps to life 
in America. 

One can hardly wonder that Dr. John Kulzzyszkl, 
a practicing Ukranian physician in Scranton told 
the author: 



64 The Russian Immigrant 

The greatest thing that America can do for the foreigners 
is to control the renting of houses. Americans build holes 
which are not fit for the pigs to live in, and rent them out 
to Russians. People say the Russians live badly because 
they live that way in Russia, but there they were compelled 
to live so; here they should have a chance to improve. 

Undoubtedly, part of the blame for these condi- 
tions is due to the lack of initiative of the Russians, 
but certainly it is no credit to our social order that 
more is not done to help educate them to better 
standards, or to compel the American owners to 
make decency possible for their tenants. That the 
housing conditions provided for the Russians were 
just as poor as the owners dared to have them, was 
the opinion of the United States Immigration Com- 
missioner in Pittsburgh. 

Frequently the person who collects the rent may 
be a foreigner, but as the Russians say, "How can 
we tell? He speaks English, he is an American to 
us." The agent, according to the Russians, rarely 
agrees to make any improvements, although they 
may be sorely needed. Few tenants dare to insist, 
for they may receive a request for an increase of 
rent by way of reply. One priest told me his expe- 
rience with these agents : 

When they are Americans they are very polite as long 
as they think they can get your money. One insurance 
agent crossed himself as he opened my door. After he re- 
ceived my order he went out slamming the door and spitting 



The Russian in His Home Environment 65 

on the porch. When others come for the rent, they will 
offer me a cigarette ; when they have no business, they won't 
even recognize me on the street. 

The average worker does not care especially for 
recognition by an agent, but often he isn't treated 
even decently, and if he is at all delinquent in his 
payments he is likely to find himself on the street. 

Not only does this isolation and bad housing sep- 
arate the Russian from Americans, but he feels that 
he is regarded as an inferior. The expansion of 
his consciousness of kind to include Americans is 
hindered or wholly prevented. Americans do not 
show any sympathy for him nor does his tenement 
life give opportunity to gratify his desire for a rea- 
sonable amount of recognition. The Russian sees 
little opportunity for the expression of his ego or 
of his pride in family or home. Woodworth be- 
lieves that most human mechanisms, once aroused, 
are capable of furnishing their own drive and of 
lending drive to other connected mechanisms.^" But 
as we have already seen, the mechanism of the Rus- 
sian has little chance in his daily task either to re- 
spond to the drive of certain instincts or to give 
expression to his native capacities. These instincts 
and capacities suppressed in the industrial field 
might conceivably find an outlet in his home life. 
But here he is living in a sordid environment of 



10 Woodworth, R. S., Dynamic Psychology (N. Y., 1918), pp. 
36-43. 



66 The Russian Immigrant 

cheap tenements — ugly or dilapidated — with their 
accompaniment of congestion, noise, and dirt. 
Americans look askance at the "Dagoes" and "Po- 
lacks." The Russian feels this if he goes into an 
American shop to trade; he notes it in the attitude 
of the rent collector. It is impossible to say how 
far this condition creates in the Russian a dislike 
for our country, but it is one decided factor which 
cannot be overlooked. 

No matter what the angle of approach to the 
housing conditions and the associations incidental to 
them, the conclusion is inevitable that a large ma- 
jority of the Russians have here little or no oppor- 
tunity for favorable contacts with Americans. 

Factors Relating to Health 

The Russian's food is usually purchased in a Jew- 
ish grocery or meat market in his neighborhood. 
The turnover is not large and the proprietor makes 
as much as the traffic will bear. As tested by the 
writer, prices were always higher for the same qual- 
ity of goods than in the better grade of grocery 
stores for Americans. It was, of course, extremely 
difficult to make sure of the same quality, but it was 
interesting to find that a cheap grade of butter cost 
less at the large American store than at the for- 
eign one. 

In the Jewish grocery the same brand of flour 
was higher per pound, while certain brands of 
cereals and canned goods were three or four cents 



The Russian in His Home Environment 67 

more. Mr. Sibray, the U. S. Immigration Commis- 
sioner in Pittsburgh, says that we charge the for- 
eigner decidedly more than we charge ourselves. A 
Russian-Jewish storekeeper in Detroit explained 
that these high prices were due to capitalistic prof- 
iteering, and Russian workmen seldom account for 
the high prices in any other way. To offset them, 
the small shopkeepers often buy food of the lowest 
grade; stale meat and withered vegetables. The 
Russian has been used to fresh food, the products 
of his own fields, but here in the market, accessible 
to him, the same articles are few, old and expensive. 
He is likely therefore to change his diet to one con- 
sisting largely of meat of questionable age, the qual- 
ity of which is less noticeable to him. The wife of 
the priest in Hartford tells of seeing one Russian 
boarding-house keeper in 1920 buy 27 pounds of 
meat for $1.50. It was the cheapest there was, for 
the butcher picked it out from the scraps under the 
table. A heavy meat diet is undoubtedly responsible 
for a great deal of digestive trouble among the Rus- 
sians, and Jewish doctors with whom the writer con- 
sulted stated that this malady was the most com- 
mon cause of complaint. There are few other single 
factors which are more potent in contributing to 
discontent than poor food and a disordered stom- 
ach. In giving his opinion of the greatest need of 
the Russians to a government bureau, one Russian 
from Gary, Indiana, wrote, "We need fresh food 
products and fresh meat and there is no such meat 



68 



The Russian Immigrant 



now In America." " He judged, of course, only 
from his own limited experience. 

Nearly all the doctors who were consulted men- 
tioned tuberculosis also and venereal disease as ex- 
isting, but perhaps not to a greater extent than 
among other races. They thought that the factory 
work with its absence of outdoor healthful labor 
and its contrast to field work cannot but increase 
the prevalence of tuberculosis, as the absence of 
normal family life has increased venereal disease. 
The fact that, as a rule, only the strongest Russians 
migrate to America minimizes the prevalence of dis- 
ease to an extent difficult to estimate. It seemed to 
be the opinion of the Russians in the mining and 
steel industries that more were laid off on account 
of accidents than by illness. Statistics by nationality 
are extremely difficult to secure from the hospitals, 
and when obtained are not very reliable for the Rus- 
sian, since so many patronize private doctors. 

A study conducted by Dr. E. H. Lewinsky-Cor- 
win under the auspices of the New York Academy 
of Medicine in 19 19 among 8,645 individuals and 
2,023 families of which 357 families and 1,692 indi- 
viduals were Slavs, showed that over ten per cent 
of the Slavs were ill at the time of the investigation. 
This was double the percentage for the Italians and 
was, next to the Irish, the highest. It is significant 
that the Slavs used the dispensary in only 2.2 per 
cent of their cases, the general hospital In only 2.3 

1^ From a letter of which the author has a copy. 



The Russian in His Home Environment 69 

per cent and did not use the maternity hospital at 
all. They avail themselves of institutional help less 
than any of the other nationalities; in fact, not quite 
one half as frequently as the next in order, the Ital- 
ians. On the other hand, 58.2 per cent secure the 
services of private physicians. This is the largest 
percentage with the exception of the Italians, while 
in 35 per cent of all the cases they utilize a mid- 
wife, a druggist, or depend on themselves — a higher 
proportion than in any other group. Considering 
only confinement cases, 87.5 per cent of the Slavs 
employed a midwife, the same percentage as for the 
Italians and more than for any other race. In 
minor complaints such as colds, stomach trouble or 
being "run down," 58 per cent of the Slavs visited 
private physicians, more than any other nationality, 
and only 1.7 per cent used a dispensary, the lowest 
percentage of all. Of the remainder, 39.1 per cent 
depended upon non-professional care, and i.i per 
cent on their lodge or society physician.^^ 

In giving their reasons for not going to a dis- 
pensary, over one-quarter of the Slavs said they did 
not know that such an institution existed, while the 
others said that they were able to pay a private 
doctor, or that they could not speak English, or 
were afraid, or were dissatisfied with the kind of 
treatment given, or that there was no dispensary 
near. It must be remembered that it is extremely 

^2 Public Health Committee of the New York Academy of 
Medicine, The Problem of Disease (N. Y., 1921), pp. 1-23. 



70 The Russian Immigrant 

difficult to get the real reasons in such an investiga- 
tion and those who replied that they were able to 
pay, undoubtedly had other unexpressed objections 
to using a dispensary. Although these statistics in- 
cluded other Slavic races besides the Russian, they 
corroborate the investigation of the author. Most 
Russian Slavs either do not know where to go or 
have never even heard that there is a dispensary. 
Those who might go cannot speak English, and dis- 
pensaries and hospitals rarely provide interpreters. 
Some seem to be prejudiced, fearing that they will 
be experimented on by doctors "who do not care 
whether we get well or die." "If you go to the 
hospital they poison you and cut you up for prac- 
tice," is a saying occasionally heard. One man even 
told the writer that in the case of a friend who had 
gone to the free ward the doctor had used a hypo- 
dermic injection. The Russian had protested, but 
the doctor replied that he wanted to see how it 
would work on him anyway. The conclusion of the 
Russian, although apparently erroneous, was that 
the doctor was less interested in curing him than in 
experimenting upon him. 

The effect on those who have been in our hos- 
pitals is not always so bad. For example, a Russian 
woman on Cherry Street in New York City, who 
has lived in America eighteen years and can yet 
speak no English because she "has not met Amer- 
icans" went to Gouverneur Hospital. Her husband 
had been killed four years before; she was support- 



The Russian in His Home Environment 71 

ing her three children by cleaning one downtown 
office daily from three to nine A.M. for $153 week 
and a dentist's office three hours in the evening for 
$8 a week. On this money she lived in a dark little 
apartment of three rooms. The ceiling was mil- 
dewed and the plaster was falling off. Only the 
room which she rented out had direct access to the 
fresh air. She became- afflicted with severe pains 
and the Jewish doctor informed her that the trouble 
was appendicitis. An operation was too expensive, 
so she continued her work, but her condition finally 
became so serious that she was confined to her bed. 
A boarder called a policeman, who, in turn, sum- 
moned an ambulance, and an operation in the hos- 
pital followed. After she was discharged, the in- 
stitution continued to look out for her welfare by 
sending her a box of supplies and a daily bottle of 
milk. This one friendly experience has made her 
an enthusiastic believer in America. 

In the absence of hospital data about diseases 
among the Russians, the testimony of priests and 
Russian-speaking doctors in the following places is 
worth recording as, perhaps, representative. 

From Connecticut: "In the cotton mills there is 
little ventilation, the air is saturated with small par- 
ticles of cotton fiber. Few Russians can work more 
than four years in this environment. In the rubber 
factories, the fumes from the acids bring on disease 
and in the majority of cases after six years they 
lose their health," 



72 The Russian Immigrant 

"In the rubber company after three years they 
get sick from tuberculosis from the acid fumes." 

From Pennsylvania: "In steel if he is working 
twelve hours a day, the ordinary Russian is abso- 
lutely used up in a few years. One example is Sapit- 
sky, who worked six years at the Crucible Steel car- 
rying heavy steel bars. He has now been in the hos- 
pital a year." 

"In the mines tuberculosis is common. I have 
just come from the home of a Russian who has been 
here fifteen years. He is forty-nine years old, and 
has eight children, and is dying of tuberculosis." 

"The custom in America of sleeping on mattresses 
simply results in providing a better breeding ground 
for vermin. The housing conditions are so bad the 
Russians get sick." 

"In Russia they have clean food and good veg- 
etables so they can eat them without washing. Here 
in America the Russian buys the worst and it is full 
of disease." 

"Not healthy work, all die young. There is not 
one who has lived to be sixty in my parish." 

From Akron: "While improving on the financial 
side the Russian is deteriorating on the physical 
side." 

"Rubber works are hard on the teeth. Tuber- 
culosis and venereal disease exist in spite of the nat- 
urally strong constitution of the Russian." 

From Lawrence : "The Russian is constitutionally 
strong, but the textile industry is very dusty and is 



The Russian in His Home Environment 73 

hard on the lungs; the longer he remains, the more 
prone he is to tuberculosis." 

From Cleveland: "The most prevalent disease 
among the Russians is tuberculosis." 

Whether or not these are accurate observations, 
they do indicate what Russians believe to be true, 
namely, that, in their situation, America is not a 
healthy place to live in. Most of the Russians ad- 
mit that our cities are cleaner than those of Russia 
and that the water supply and sewage system are 
something they did not have at home. But these 
advantages do not seem to impress themselves with 
great force on the Russian from the village; he 
points to the loss in his own weight as an index of 
the deleterious effect of America. One will fre- 
quently say, "I was one hundred and seventy pounds 
In weight, now I am only one hundred and thirty," 
or "I weighed two hundred pounds, now I am only 
one hundred and forty." 

What makes ill health worse for the Russian Is 
that he has no family physician to whom he can turn. 
Rarely speaking English, he must patronize those 
who can understand him, and these are often quack 
doctors who use every device for ensnaring him. 
The editor of one of the Russian newspapers told 
me that his paper only kept running from the ad- 
vertisements of these "leeches." Another stated 
that his paper secured thirty per cent of Its Income 
from medical advertisements. Yet after an analysis 
of medical advertisements In Russian papers, MI- 



74 The Russian Immigrant 

chael M. Davis of the Boston Dispensary and head 
of the department of Health Standards of the 
Americanization Studies of the Carnegie Founda- 
tion, says that they are "very obviously fakes." 
Here is a sample of one advertisement translated 
into English. "This is the only doctor from the 

old country Fellow citizens : look for help 

where you can find it, which will bring you out on 
the right path. This is the only doctor from the 
old country. He speaks Russian and has a practice 
of twenty-five years. He cures with the best reme- 
dies, chronic and all diseases. Do not lose any time. 
Come promptly to his office. Advice free." Another 
reads: "Do you suffer from weak nerves, lame back, 
forgetfulness, palpitation of the heart, weak lungs, 
dull heavy feeling, headache, dizziness, dimness of 
vision, weakness of limbs, ulcers, sores, catarrh, 
dripping in the throat, pain in the stomach or back, 
sore throat, coated tongue, constipation, rheumatic 
pains, pimples? These and many others are the first 
warnings of the loss of health. Come to me at once, 
if you need treatment. Delays are dangerous. No 
disease lies dormant." 

The Russians testify that they never go to these 
doctors without learning that they have a serious 
complaint, and paying a good round sum. A Polish 
doctor told me that quack doctors frequently scare 
the Russians into the belief that they have serious 
maladies and then charge them as much as they will 



The Russian in His Home Environment 75 

bear. A Jewish doctor told me that the Russians 
always pay whatever he asks without a murmur and 
that he greatly preferred them to Americans, who 
always make trouble over the bill. Although the 
Russians report going to German, Polish, Jewish, 
colored and even Japanese doctors they seldom con- 
sult an American one. In answer to my question as 
to where he secured a brilliant scarlet-colored fluid 
for spraying his nose, a Russian worker in Philadel- 
phia replied that it came from a negro doctor. "He 
charges less than the Jewish one," was his reason 
for patronizing him. Another described his pref- 
erence for a Jewish dentist. "The American one 
says, 'Hurry up, get a jump, open your mouth wide, 
hold up your head high.' In fifteen minutes the 
work was done. The Jewish doctor takes an hour 
and does the job good." Still another told me that 
an American dentist pulled out the wrong tooth. 
When he went back the dentist said, "Well, I was 
busy and didn't notice." After finally pulling out 
the right one, this man charged him for both teeth. 
Whether true or not, this story reflects the narrator's 
state of mind. 

In addition to his experience with the doctors, the 
Russian, along with everybody else, is exposed to 
the patent medicine danger, only he has not been 
educated with regard to its injurious effects. Here 
is a specimen advertisement: 



76 The Russian Immigrant 

EVERY RUSSIAN MOTHER 

knows that the only certain medicine for the crying and 
discomfort and sleeplessness of her baby is "Romko," manu- 
factured by the Baby Safety Company. Do not let your 
baby cry and suflfer for hours. If your child has a stomach 
ache or suffers from constipation ; if its teeth are coming 
and it is sick for this reason ; if it cries and is discontented, 
do not wait one minute, but buy in the local drug store, 
for thirty-five cents, a bottle of "Romko," manufactured by 
the Baby Safety Company. If you cannot get the original 
there, send a paper dollar for three bottles, or stamps for 
thirty-five cents for one bottle, to the following ad- 
dress: ^^ 

To all too many Russians, patent medicines and 
quack doctors are another side of America which 
stands for money-getting rather than friendship. 
Perhaps the chief charges the Russians lay up 
against America on the side of their health are: 

1. The climate Is bad. The damp atmosphere 
with the alternating hot and cold temperatures Is far 
different from the dry cold of Russia. 

2. The change from the open fields to the factory 
air surcharged with chemical fumes, dust and other 
impurities Is a radical one. 

3. The unsanitary tenement houses with the re- 
sultant overcrowding, breed disease. 

4. The constant meat diet, as contrasted with the 

13 Advertisement given to the author in translated form by 
Michael M. Davis, of the Carnegie Americanization Studies. 



The Russian in His Home Environment 77 

fresh vegetables of the Russian peasant, Is harmful. 

5. The exploitation of quack doctors makes them 
a prey to greed when they most need help. 

It is a matter of common knowledge that Indi- 
viduals who do not have the right diet, or are below 
par physically are inclined to be pessimistic toward 
all their environmental situation. Now the Rus- 
sian, as we have just noted, has come from a dif- 
ferent climate with different food and from an out- 
door life into factory conditions and tenement con- 
gestion. These things cannot but affect his health. 
If, in addition to this, he is exploited by the foreign 
doctor to whom he turns for help, his mental reac- 
tion may be prejudiced against every situation In 
which he is placed. This factor alone might pre- 
dispose him to dislike America. It certainly leaves 
him open minded towards radical propaganda, 
which always bitterly assails the existing conditions. 

Single Russians 

The overwhelming majority of Russians In this 
country are single, or without wives here. In the 
Immigration Commission Report of 1909, 41.4 per 
cent of the 6,621 Russians twenty years of age or 
over were single. Out of the entire number there 
were only 140 married Russian women, a fact tend- 
ing to indicate that the wives of the great majority 
of married males were still in Europe. From 1898 
until the outbreak of the war, 14 per cent of the 
Russian Immigration has been female and 86 per 



^8 The Russian Immigrant 

cent male. This means that on entering the United 
States at least seventy-two per cent of the Russians 
were single or without their wives/* 

This paucity of Russian women results, to some 
extent, in a suppression of normal sex responses. 
These tendencies must either be repressed entirely 
or find expression in abnormal ways which Amer- 
ican mores prohibit. The frequent advertisements 
in the Russian press asking for news of the where- 
abouts of a wife who has run away with one of the 
boarders is but one index of this situation. "Freud 
considers that the origin of all cases belonging to 
certain varieties of mental disease can be traced back 
to factors connected with a single one of the great 
instincts, that of sex." ^^ While Freud is considered 
by many to have overemphasized the role of sex, 
few would deny that in many cases his explanation 
has a large measure of truth. The suppression of 
the normal opportunity for sex responses in the Rus- 
sian is one more factor which affects his attitude. 

In addition to this fact, the single Russian has 
few contacts with the favorable side of American 
life. He usually secures his room from foreigners 
and makes his living arrangements in one of the fol- 
lowing ways : 

a — By renting a room and boarding himself. 

1* U. S. Bureau of Immigration, Annual Report of the Commis- 
sioner General of Immigration for each year from 1898-1914, 
table 7. 

15 Hart, B., The Psychology of Insanity (Cambridge, England, 
1912), p. 166. 



The Russian in His Home Environment 79 

b — By renting a room and boarding at the restaurants. 

c — By renting rooms cooperatively with other Russians. 
In this case members of the group eat chiefly at restaurants, 
but take supper and Sunday meals together in their rooms. 
Often they have no system in their buying. First one man 
makes a purchase, then another, and each time the cost is 
divided. 

d — By boarding in a family vv^here the landlady does the 
cooking and the washing. There are several ways of pay- 
ing for the board. Sometimes, although rarely, there is a 
flat rate, in which case the landlady keeps no books. In 
other cases she buys all the food and once every two weeks 
the total bill is divided. Another method is for each man 
to have his own account book; the landlady purchases what 
he wants and charges it to him. 

In Mr. Cole's Chicago study,^^ the average wage 
of the single men was only $23 a week and fifty- 
one per cent were spending $20 or over each week. 
In contrast to the married Russians they often buy 
expensive clothes and enjoy a heavy diet in restau- 
rants. This was the daily food ration of some of 
these workmen in Pittsburgh : at 5 A. M., coffee 
and bread; at 9 A. M., "on the sly," so they say, 
sausage (culbasa), bread and perhaps an apple; at 
noon, coffee, steak, and bread; and at six o'clock 
cabbage soup, one-half pound of meat, bread and 
potatoes. Others interviewed had coffee with eggs 
or ham in the morning; sausage, bread and butter 
and apple pie at noon; and half a pound of meat 

1^ Cf. supra, chap, iii, p. 34. 



8o The Russian Immigrant 

with soup and bread at night. In New York City 
the patronage of cheap foreign restaurants seems to 
be almost universal. The ones utiHzed are mostly 
Jewish. For example, in Brownsville, a Jewish-Rus- 
sian section of Brooklyn, there are only two Rus- 
sian and two Polish restaurants, although there are 
a great many places where the Russians eat, the pro- 
prietors of which are foreign-born Jews. The result 
is that patronizing a restaurant does not ordinarily 
bring Russians into contact with Americans. Rus- 
sians with whom the writer talked in New York City 
in 192 1 claimed that their food cost them from 
$1.40 to $2.00 daily per person. Apparently, they 
can live more cheaply than Americans chiefly be- 
cause they are willing to put up with congested quar- 
ters and low rents. These very conditions, how- 
ever, keep them isolated from American life in an 
alien environment which by them is falsely thought 
of as typifying America. 

Married Russians 

We have already shown that the overwhelming 
majority of Russians in America are single or with- 
out their wives. The scarcity value of the Russian 
women who are here is well illustrated by the follow- 
ing incident. A young woman inserted an advertise- 
ment in the Russian paper for a secretarial position; 
within a week she had received over fifty replies ask- 
ing for her hand in marriage. The result of the 
scarcity of Russian girls is that there is some inter- 



The Russian in His Home Environment 8 1 

marriage with Ruthenians, Poles or any Slavic na- 
tionality. 

It is obvious that life in congested and dilap- 
idated tenements cannot be ideal. For many mar- 
ried Russians the sitting room, kitchen and bedroom 
are all In one. The writer visited a family of five 
who were living In this way. The husband worked 
twelve hours a night and was sound asleep at eleven 
in the morning, oblivious to his caller or the children. 
The wife contributed her share toward the support 
of the family by renting her other room to boarders. 
The apartment of two rooms cost sixteen dollars a 
month. The walls were mildewed and In spots the 
paper hung down In tatters, and it Is obvious that 
little wholesome family life can exist In such a house 
— yet there are many such Russian homes. The 
two older children attend an American public school; 
their last report cards showed a good record. They 
get no help from their parents, who are illiterate. 
Both these children enjoyed school; but as soon as 
possible they will be sent to work in order to con- 
tribute their share towards the family income. I 
went over the expenses of the family with the mother 
and found that they were not saving a cent. The 
cost of food and clothes for the children, who 
wanted to be dressed as well as the others In the 
school, made saving impossible. 

The women work exceptionally hard. For ex- 
ample, one known to the writer cares for seven chil- 
dren and eighteen boarders. She gets up at six A. M. 



82 The Russian Immigrant 

and works until night, cooking, washing, and 
scrubbing daily for twenty-seven people, yet she 
thinks she is not doing over much. Nearly all the 
women either take in boarders or do outside work, 
and some do both. In Ansonia, Connecticut, for ex- 
ample, some of the mothers sew on buttons; in Phila- 
delphia they frequently work in the candy or cigar 
factories. One family there adopted the plan of 
having the husband at his job during the night and 
the wife during the day, so that some one was at 
home with the children all the time. In Boston and 
Lawrence the women are in the spinning mills and 
candy factories. In some of the mining towns they 
keep a few chickens, selling the eggs. In Hartford 
the priest said that many of the women string to- 
bacco. Wherever they are, the women find extra 
tasks, and their lot is not easy. 

Frequently the husband will start away at eight 
in the morning and be back at six in the evening; but 
the wife must have the breakfast ready before the 
men leave and then care for the children all day; 
perhaps, also, doing some sewing for a clothing con- 
cern. She must purchase the groceries, wash the 
clothes, clean and cook, not only for her own family 
but for the boarders as well. The pall of heavy, 
monotonous labor lies upon the entire family. The 
men return from the day's labor in blast furnace or 
mine tired out and incapable of any real comrade- 
ship with their children or wives. In the family re- 
lationships, then, the Russians are, as a rule, isolated 



The Russian in His Home Environment 83 

from wholesome Influences except those which may 
come through the children who attend the pubhc 
school. 

The Second Generation 

The Russian children, as a whole, know English 
better than they do Russian. They will understand 
when their parents speak in the Old Country tongue, 
but will usually answer in English. They attend 
the public schools until they can pass muster as old 
enough to work. Considerable violation of the 
school law occurs, because, although the Russians 
take pride in their children and wish them to secure 
better jobs and live easier lives than they have, eco- 
nomic pressure is too strong for them. As far as 
they can, the children dress like American children 
and often look askance at the peculiar habits and 
customs of their parents. A common schooling 
breaks down a good deal of racial prejudice, and 
the children mingle with almost any of those in the 
neighborhood, even the blacks. 

All too early, however, they must begin to con- 
tribute their share to the family income as office 
boys, clerks, candy-factory workers, errand or mes- 
senger boys, drivers, and what not. The girls often 
work at the bargain counter at an extremely low 
wage, which they feel is inadequate for their needs. 
They do not know how to spend their money wisely 
and naturally desire the silks and furs which are 
worn by others at the dances, their chief amusement. 



84 The Russian Immigrant 

It is seldom that they are not able to purchase some 
of these clothes, but often it is at the expense of 
their food. 

The young Russians of the second generation, in 
so far as they have gone to our public schools, have 
come in touch with some of the wholesome influ- 
ences of our American life, and they respond with 
appreciation. They feel more American than Rus- 
sian. Unfortunately, the majority leave school 
somewhere between the sixth and eighth grades with 
hardly more than the barest rudiments of reading 
and writing, and are destined to live among the low- 
est ranks of our citizens." 

Recreation 

Mr. Cole in a tabulation of the predominant rec- 
reational interests of ninety-eight Russian men in 
Chicago^^ notes that sixteen claimed the saloon and 
more than half of the entire number frequented it; 
next came the movies with thirteen, although nearly 
all stated that they attended occasionally. 

The other interests follow in the order of their 
importance: Reading 13, dancing 11, music 11, 
home 6, girls 5, church 5, walking 4, bowling 4, 
theater 3, pool 3, cards 2, meetings 2. The men 
who worked seven days a week were very bitter 

^^ The Russian is among the newest of our immigrants. There 
has not yet been time for a large number of the second generation 
to grow up in our country, and this study is primarily concerned 
with the foreign-born. 

^^ Cf. supra, chap, iii, p. 34. (Mr. Cole secured data on their 
recreational interests from 98 out of the 112 men investigated.) 



The Russian in His Home Environment 85 

when asked, "What do you do when you want to 
have a good time?" One said, "When we want a 
good time, sleep a couple of hours." Another said, 
"We work like bull, no time even for rest." 

The prohibition amendment has brought a change 
in the recreational life of many Russians. Although 
they can still purchase liquor in some places, it is 
expensive. Some have begun to make their own 
liquor at home, but this is by no means universally 
true. In one mining town in Pennsylvania the au- 
thorities stated that in the days of the saloon they 
had to keep a special policeman all the time to 
handle the drunken quarrels arising among the Rus- 
sians and Ruthenians. Now they have no policeman 
at all. Our American civic and religious forces have, 
as yet, put nothing in the place of the saloon, and 
the Russian spends his time as best he can. Prob- 
ably the greatest single number patronize the mov- 
ing picture houses; nearly all the Russians go oc- 
casionally. 

The cases of Russians arrested in the Communist 
raids may be somewhat exceptional, and yet they are 
significant. Out of 40 men interviewed, 18 had been 
accustomed to attend the movies once a week or 
oftener and the theater once or more in two weeks. 
Nine of these had gone on an average of 2.7 times 
a week. The other twenty-two varied widely, eleven 
patronizing a performance once in two weeks or a 
month, while the rest attended but rarely. Those 
who frequented the movies over twice a week went 



86 The Russian Immigrant 

to the theater about three times a month. As might 
be expected, the foreigners usually patronize the 
smaller shows. The character of the pictures as 
seen by the writer was largely of the sex appeal 
mingled with the dime novel mystery and murder. 
One Russian workman in Akron characterized them 
as "only play, killing and jumping." Often they de- 
pict the life of millionaires living in idleness and 
luxury, and naturally the Russian who seldom comes 
into contact with real Americans often forms a part 
of his conception of American life from what he 
sees in the pictures. They make him think of the 
contrast between his own surroundings and those 
portrayed in the film. 

Card playing is a constant source of amusement. 
Many of the Russians play at home and often there 
is the added incentive of money stakes. This is 
hardly to be wondered at, for when they cannot read 
they have few other amusements. 

Dances are frequently given among the Russians 
and are largely patronized by the younger men and 
women. Occasionally, also, amateur theatricals are 
staged. Most of the Russians love music; the bala- 
laika ^^ and other stringed instruments are popular. 
The beautiful Russian folksongs and the music from 
their own celebrated masters — Tschaikowsky, for ex- 
ample — present a striking contrast to our American 
ragtime. It is no wonder that the Russian appre- 

1^ The balalaika is a Russian musical instrument resembling a 
guitar. 



The Russian in His Home Environment 87 

ciates his own music and that in the dark city tene- 
ments he will occasionally recall his homeland in 
such verses as these : 

ON THE BANKS OF THE VOLGA -° 

On the waters of our little-mother Volga 

The storm is lashing, and the waves rise high ; 

Alone a tiny boat is battling 

Alone 'midst the fury of the gale; 

But look! at the helm there stands a figure, 

Scorning death in the waters dark and grim, 

'Tis the hero of our little-mother Volga 

Our Stegneka Rasine. 

THE FAIR LITTLE MEADOW 

O meadow, fair little meadow, wide in sweep, wide in sweep, 
On thee, fair, dear meadow, the shadows descend, the shad- 
ows descend, 
The lad loved a lass, loved with a love not of earth, but 
profound. 

So few are the Russian gathering places that com- 
I paratively seldom do the Russians join together for 
a Sunday walk as in Russia. Until the wholesale 
arrests by our Federal authorities in 1920,^^ many of 
I the Russians attended small political clubs and meet- 
ings; after that, group meetings were, for a time, 
precarious and consequently secret, but now, in 1922, 
they are beginning again. 

20 From a translation by Miss Isabel Hapgood, used on the 
program of a Russian musicale in New York in 1921. 

21 This refers to general arrests directed against Communists and 
alien radicals. Cf. chap. vi. 



88 The Russian Immigrant 

In the agricultural districts the dearth of enter- 
tainment is even more apparent. Perhaps it has not 
been an entire loss that in so many rural communities 
the modern brand of moving pictures has been 
lacking. 

In associative recreation as well as in other forms 
of group activity, the basic factor is consciousness 
of kind. Those that are alike tend to associate to- 
gether. There is what Woodworth calls a social 
impulse, "an impulse to act together, as well as to 
be together." This can best find expression if Rus- 
sians can be with Russians or if they can be made to 
feel at one with Americans. Under the conditions 
prevailing in America, this social impulse does not 
find normal outlet with Russians and practically not 
at all with Americans. "A people can be judged 
and its career can be predicted from the character 
of its pleasures, with more accuracy than from any 
other data." " We have already seen that the Rus- 
sian has a background of wholesome recreation In 
his homeland. His folksongs and native festivals 
far surpass in sociality our usual American pleas- 
ures. Here, the Russian can attend a moving pic- 
ture play and gaze silently at what is usually an 
abnormal and frequently harmful exhibition pur- 
porting to be American life.^^ But this really does 

22 Giddings, Democracy and Empire, op. cit., p. 243. 

23 In several cities and states in 1921 there has been an organized 
movement against the low quality of the moving pictures. New 
York State passed a moving picture censorship law. Michigan 
prohibits the exhibition of a crime, and Kalamazoo attempts to 
enforce the law. Things reached such a pass in Tulsa, Oklahoma, 



The Russian in His Home Environment 89 

not offer scope for the expression of the social im- 
pulse, it merely arouses the emotions. 

Conclusion 

It is, then, apparent that in most of these recrea- 
tional activities, little contact is made with the good 
side of American life, although some of our foibles 
such as cheap "jazz" music and questionable moving 
pictures are foisted upon the Russian. We have 
seen that he usually lives in a cheap foreign district 
among a group using an alien language and having, 
in the main, different manners, customs, amusements, 
arts, and standards of living from the American. It 
is one of the striking achievements of our civiliza- 
tion that we do reach the foreign children to some 
extent, but we give them only the barest opportunity 
to secure something of our culture and well-being. 
We are content to leave their parents isolated in a 
foreign atmosphere, and in that environment the 
children are brought up. Some device ought to be 
utilized to bring these people into contact with good 
American influences. 

The foreign-born Russian instead of growing 
more like-minded with Americans through the forces 
we have herein described has, too often, been grow- 
ing still further unlike. There are few points of 
common stimulation, inter-stimulation and response 

that after a campaign against the portrayal of crime in the motion 
pictures, one newspaper, the Tulsa Tribune, refused to accept all 
moving picture advertising. 



90 The Russian Immigrant 

between Americans and Russians to bring about re- 
semblance. In order to analyze still further the 
causes determining this differentiation, we shall n^xt 
discuss the educational and religious social fo* ces 
which surround the Russian Slav. 



CHAPTER V 

ORGANIZED SOCIAL FORCES: RELIGIOUS AND 
EDUCATIONAL 

The Russian Greek Orthodox Church 

We have already noted in Chapter II that repre- 
sentatives of the Russian branch of the Eastern 
Orthodox Church followed the Russian colonists to 
Alaska and California toward the end of the 
eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth 
centuries. As immigration to the United States 
increased, the number of churches and priests multi- 
plied until in 191 6 there were 169 churches with 
99,681 members.^ This membership includes all 
the men, women and children living in a parish 
who ever attend services; the majority are Ruthc- 
nians from Galicia, and not strictly Russian Slavs. 
The church is controlled by an archbishop who, until 
the revolution, was appointed by the Holy Synod 
in Russia. This Synod used $77,850 annually from 
the Tsar's treasury for the support of the mission 
in America; in addition, the Missionary Society of 
Russia donated $1,481. 

The churches in America are divided into twenty- 

1 Bureau of the Census, Religious Bodies, I916 (Washington, 
1919), part 2, p. 261. 

91 



92 The Russian Immigrant 

seven districts supervised by superintendents ap- 
pointed by the Archbishop. It is the custom in the 
Greek churches to hold religious services or Satur- 
day evening and Sunday morning. Religious instruc- 
tion is usually provided for the children, either on 
Saturday, or during the week after school hours. 
In 1916 there were 126 such schools with 150 offi- 
cers and teachers and 6,739 students.^ The instruc- 
tion is carried on in the Russian language, and sev- 
eral priests frankly told the author that up to the 
revolution the attempt was made to keep the children 
loyal to the Tsar and to Russia. The chief subjects 
taught are: the Russian language, Russian history, 
Bible history, the catechism, prayers and church sing- 
ing. Besides this, the church maintains a theological 
seminary, a girls' college, an immigrant home, a 
monastery which in 19 16 contained 12 men, and an 
orphanage which in the same year supported about 
55 children. 

Affihated with the Church is the Russian Ortho- 
dox Society of Mutual Aid, which was founded in 
1895. Its aim is to spread and strengthen the Or- 
thodox faith and church organization in America 
and to provide insurance for accident, sickness, and 
death besides aiding widows and orphans. It also 
maintains a weekly paper.^ In April, 1920, the so- 

2 In 1920, when the author visited these schools, the priests testi- 
fied that there had been a great falling off in attendance of 
children, due to the unpopularity of the church. 

2 Bureau of the Census, Religious Bodies, 1916, part 2, op. cit., 
p. 260. 



Organized Social Forces 93 

ciety had i88 Brotherhoods with 7,336 members, 
composed largely of workingmen. The largest num- 
ber came from the borders of Hungary, the next 
largest from Russia. In the period from 1905 to 
19 1 8 inclusive, the society paid out for death bene- 
fits $677,787.85, for sick benefits $53,845, and gave 
in charity $164,013.03. In April, 1920, its total 
insurance liability was $5,304,500. Five-sixths of 
the membership was insured for either $500 or 
$1,000.* Besides this organization there is a rival 
mutual aid company, the Russian Brotherhood So- 
ciety, which also enrolls many of the attendants of 
the Russian Orthodox Church. This society was 
organized in 1900 as the result of a split in the 
Ukranian People's Society. From the beginning it 
stood firmly on a nationalistic platform for Russia 
from first to last, refusing to be associated with any 
agitation in favor of an independent Ukraine." In 
19 1 7 the Russian Slav membership was about 3,000 
out of a total of over 12,000. Over half the men 
were insured for $600 and over one-third for 
$1,000, while over four-fifths of the women were in- 
sured for $300.^ From its organization in 1900 to 
1920, this society paid out over 1,850 death claims 
totalling over a million dollars. It is therefore 
apparent that these organizations have rendered 

* Russian Orthodox Society of Mutual Aid, Russians and Ortho- 
dox in North America (Wilkesbarre, Pa., 1920), pp. 136-137 (tr. 
from Russian). 

5 E. I. Omeltchenko, Russian-American Register (N. Y., 1920), 
p. 214. 

* Omeltchenko, op. cit., p. 215. 



94 The Russian Immigrant 

service to the Russian workers in the emergencies 
of sickness and accident. But being distinctly Rus- 
sian they have failed to give them an msight into 
American life. 

Although these societies are democratically or- 
ganized, the church as a whole, coming as it has out 
of the Russia of the Tsars, is quite the reverse. The 
Russian workmen give their savings for its support, 
yet have little or no voice in its management. In 
some cases the funds for church maintenance are 
deducted directly from their pay envelopes; for ex- 
ample, in Coaldale the coal companies deduct one- 
half a day's wage from each Russian worker every 
month and give it to the priest. His receipts from 
this source in 1919 were $14,917.78. The church 
there cost $200,000, so he claimed, having a debt 
of only $26,000 outstanding. Although these Rus- 
sian workers are thus constrained to support the 
church, they yet have no power to elect their priests 
and the property stands in the name of the Arch- 
bishop at New York. 

Following the revolution in Russia, many of the 
members became dissatisfied with the autocratic con- 
trol which vested all the titles to the property in the 
name of the Archbishop. One instance occurred in 
Chicago when some of the congregation demanded 
an accounting of money contributed. Their de- 
mands finally became so insistent that the priest 
preached a sermon in which he said that the money 
belonged to the Lord and would be accounted for 



Organized Social Forces 95 

to him. This so enraged a portion of his listeners 
that they protested loudly in the midst of the service. 
The final result was the starting of an Independent 
Church which used many of the old ritual forms but 
the title to the property rested with the parish- 
ioners/ Much the same thing happened in the Rus- 
sian Orthodox All Saints' Church in Detroit, organ- 
ized in 19 14. During 19 18 there was a growing 
controversy among the members as to who should 
own the property. In November a new priest was 
sent to the congregation in spite of the objections 
of many. Finally, dissension became so general that 
in March, 19 19, members of the church had a meet- 
ing at which a new board was elected, the majority 
being in sympathy with the democratic management, 
control and ownership of the church by the con- 
gregation. The old board refused to give over the 
property, and an independent church was formed. In 
1920 there were independent churches in Chicago, 
Detroit, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Brook- 
lyn, Baltimore, Bayonne City, N. J., and Lawrence, 
Mass. These used the old forms and acknowledged 
the authority of the Patriarch in Russia, but would 
not submit to the authority of the acting head in 
America. Ordinarily these separate churches carry 
on a larger educational and social work than do the 
Orthodox ones. 

The Orthodox Church has been still further weak- 

'' According to the testimony of several who had been in the 
congregation at that time. 



g6 The Russian Immigrant 

ened by various unfortunate occurrences within its 
own organization. A suit was brought against the 
Archbishop and Consistory by seventeen priests, 
charging offenses ranging all the way from fraudu- 
lent handling of money to personal immorality.* 
This resulted in the court's appointing a Receiver.' 
Since the revolution the acting Archbishop has had 
fifteen lawsuits on his hands, five of them concern- 
ing the control of church property. United States 
customs officers also seized goods belonging to the 
church because, although they had been admitted 
free of duty into America, the church was now sell- 
ing them. The autocratic character of the church 
was frankly admitted when the Archbishop declared 
that he was accountable to no one. He stated fur- 
ther that there was no necessity for keeping books, 
since the goods were sold if the customer had money, 
and if not were given away.^° The powerful Or- 
thodox Society of Mutual Aid attacked Archbishop 
Alexander in their paper and year-book on three 
grounds :^ 



.11 



I — That he had been intriguing to get his predecessor 
Evdokim out of America in order to seize control himself. 

* Taken from an unprinted brief submitted in the legal proceed- 
ings, J. S. Kedrofsky against Archbishop and Consistory of the 
Russian Orthodox Greek Church, Supreme Court, New York 
County (1919). 

• The order appointing Mr. Francis S. Bangs, Receiver, was 
made March 22, 1919, and was filed in the office of the Clerk of New 
York County, March 24, 1919. 

^° From the brief for the defense in answer to that of Kedrofsky 
in the suit against the Archbishop, op cit. 
11 Russian Orthodox Society of Mutual Aid, op. cit., p. 59. 



Organized Social Forces 97 

2 — That in reality he favored an independent Ukraine. 
3 — That he had tried to break up the Orthodox Society 
of Mutual Aid. 



All these facts, many of which were sensationally 
treated in the Russian press, strengthened the bad 
impression made. Many Russians, some of whom 
may have been previous supporters of the church, 
became deeply suspicious of its purpose and sin- 
cerity. 

Before the revolution, when the church was more 
popular among the rank and file, it had been given, 
as we have noted, a yearly subsidy from Russia, and 
prayer was regularly made for the Tsar. It frankly 
tried to keep the people loyal to him, and to Rus- 
sia, according to the testimony of priests to the 
author. The feeling of an educated Russian in 
Cleveland was, "The priests are simply the Tsar's 
officials." In 1920, three years after the revolution,- 
a priest in Pennsylvania showed me into his study 
in which still hung pictures of Tsar Nicolas and the 
nobility. Another priest, himself, said that the 
church in America had always been used in the 
interest of the Tsar's government, and had often 
tried to make its parishioners dislike America that 
they might remain loyal to Russia. 

In the Russian Land, a religious Russian news- 
paper, there appeared in 19 16 a series of anti-Amer- 
ican articles signed "Black Diamond." In the law- 
suits brought by Father Kedrofsky it was charged 



98 The Russian Immigrant 

that Archbishop Alexander was the author. While 
this is denied by the church authorities and probably 
justly so, it seems unfortunate that a religious pe- 
riodical purporting to reflect the spirit of the Ortho- 
dox Church should have published such attacks on 
America. A sample is here given in order that the 
readet- may gather something of the state of mind 
of the editor.^^ 

SWEET LAND OF LIBERTY 

All the factories are the selfsame ichor which poisons 
the worker's soul and body. Capital is a cruel master; 
workers are his slaves foredoomed to death. Each working 
day shortens the worker's life for a few months, saps the 
living juice out of him, dries out the heart, dampens the 
noblest aspirations of the soul ; transforms a living man 
into a sort of machine, embitters the whole life. The ragged 
soul and body of the worker bring forth to the world half 
sick children, paralytic, idiotic — therefore the factory's poi- 
son kills not merely the unfortunate workers, but also whole 
generations. It kills invisibly, imperceptibly, in such a man- 
ner that the workers themselves — the voluntary slaves of 
capital — fail to see the whole frightfulness of their own 
situation. . . . 

In Russia, more attention is paid to the man. There, they 
say: "Men are not cattle"; "Men are not made of iron"; 
"Work and rest." The mining of gold and silver and iron 
is called in our land "sing-sing work" (hard labor) which 

12 From no. 203 for Friday, August 26th. The translation is 
given in the main as presented in the brief of Kedrofsky, but has 
been checked over by the author with the newspaper article itself. 
Individual words may be translated differently, but the spirit of the 
article is correct. 



Organized Social Forces 99 

is done by the most hopeless of criminals, not by thieves but 
by cut-throats — soul-killers or traitors to the State ; whereas 
in America any work is sing-sing (hard labor), and the 
workers are galley slaves although they call themselves free 
citizens. 

In contrast with this, the church has published 
many patriotic things; usually in its services there 
are prayers for the President of the United States 
and sometimes sermons on patriotic themes. On 
Sunday, October 26th, 1920, for instance, at the 
service in the cathedral in New York, the priest 
spoke on Theodore Roosevelt, and afterwards at 
the door blanks for the Roosevelt Memorial Asso- 
ciation were handed out. Nevertheless, the church 
as a whole is frankly a Russian institution, giving 
the Russian little about America. Its priests, for 
the most part, do not even speak English. 

The attitude of the ordinary workman toward 
the church is one of suspicion. Stephen Graham in 
his book, With Poor Immigrants to America, re- 
ported a Russian here as saying that the priests keep 
the immigrant down, that they like to have the im- 
migrants drunk in order to get more money from 
them, and that it would be a good thing if the Or- 
thodox churches were demolished and the priests 
sent to Europe. After the Bolshevik revolution the 
priests incurred enmity from many more by taking 
a partisan stand in the civil war. One in Cleveland 
gave out anti-Bolshevik propaganda and urged the 
men to sign up to fight with Kolchak. The church 



100 The Russian Immigrant 

leaders, also, in many cases supported the owners 
of the businesses in which their parishioners worked. 

In Hartford, Father told me that he knew 

of one priest who, in time of strike, received money 
from an employer to urge the men in his congrega- 
tion to return to work. In Philadelphia the priest 
asserted that the Bethlehem Steel Co., at South 
Bethlehem, Pa., in 191 8 forced each Russian work- 
man to pay $1 a month to the Orthodox Church. 
Those who refused were discharged. He added, 
"If only all the companies would adopt this policy 
we would have no difficulty." It is only natural that 
the priests should strive to secure financial support 
from the companies which employ Russians. The 
following letter reveals the method adopted by one 
in Akron in 19 18 and to some extent reveals his 
state of mind. The priests have testified to the 
author that they seldom meet with success in such 
appeals. 

Mr. F. A. Seiberling, President, 
The Goodyear Tire 6f Rubber Co., 
Akron, Ohio. 

Dear Sir: 

Not less than three thousand of your employees are speak- 
ing the Russian language and still more than such were 
born in or belonged to the Russian Greek Orthodox Cath- 
olic Church. 

True Christianity always makes a man better in all re- 
spects. One cares more for his family, is more earnest in 
his work, is less vulnerable to the poisonous teachings of 



Organized Social Forces lOi 

some modern agitators trying to inoculate hate, envy and 
crime into those hearts of men where Christianity has 
planted love, respect, order and justice after long years of 
painstaking work. 

The present conditions are particularly critical to the 
Russian workingmen who, without proper education and 
surrounded by new conditions of life, may become the adepts 
of some devilish doctrine, nourished in concealment by 
treacherous enemies of the United States. They may be- 
come infested with such doctrines unless the moral influ- 
ence of their mother church will save them. We need a 
couple of thousand dollars to finish our task, but as I am 
most of the time on my missionary work, it will take a long 
time before I shall be able to pay the above money, unless a 
well meaning citizen, as you, Avith a broad understanding 
and sincere desire to improve our working community 
morally as well as materially, will contribute to the con- 
struction of this church, which no doubt is a great factor 
in the up-building of higher morals and better material con- 
ditions of this community. 

As per custom of our church, we shall pray every Sunday 
for those who helped to build this temple of the Lord, and 
God will recompense you tenfold for what you will con- 
tribute to the benefit of his faithful worshipers. 

Your sincere friend and humble servant of the Lord. 

In Pennsylvania an Orthodox Father told the au- 
thor that his predecessor secured funds to build a 
church by pledging the workmen that the money ad- 
vanced would be paid back to them. Now he leaves 
and his successor is, of course, unable to repay the 
money. 



I02 The Russian Immigrant 

All these things add to the hostility of the work- 
men against the church. One priest in Brooklyn 
estimated that 75 per cent of the Russians oppose 
the church. "Even if bread were offered to them 
free from a church," he said, "they would refuse. 
As long as a Russian is healthy, he does not need 
the church." That the masses from Russia have 
always distrusted the Orthodox Church and that this 
is the reason why such a large part of its member- 
ship is made up of Ruthenians, is the opinion of E. 
I. Omeltchenko," who as member of the Extraor- 
dinary Russian Mission sent to the United States 
after the revolution by the Temporary Government, 
made a survey of the Russian colonies in America. 
If the church has always been unpopular among 
Russians, it is doubly unpopular now. In his In- 
vestigations the author visited church after church, 
where there were only five or six in the audience dur- 
ing the services. The priests complained bitterly 
that contributions were exceedingly small. Joseph 
B. Polonsky, manager of the Russian Section of the 
Foreign Language Information Service of the 
American Red Cross, recently made a trip to the 
more important Russian colonies, going as far west 
as North Dakota. After visiting all the Orthodox 
churches he reported that the priests were preaching 
to only a mere handful; in consequence many asked 
him about securing other work for themselves. 

In spite of these facts, individual churches arc 

^3 In a statement to the author. 



Organized Social Forces 103 

popular and the Cathedral in New York is usually 
well filled on a Sunday morning. It must not be 
forgotten, moreover, that many of these Russian 
priests are sincere men who are unselfishly trying to 
serve. The writer became convinced that many are 
really doing a splendid work for their parishioners. 
Even if the Russian workman is distrustful of the 
church, he is likely to attend on Easter and at 
marriages. For funerals and christenings even the 
skeptical feel the need of the church. The priests 
are, at least, sharing the isolation of the mining 
camps at meager salaries and are giving their 
countrymen the opportunity of having beautiful 
religious services. 

The Protestant Church 

The work of the Protestant Church on behalf of 
the Russians is very small even in the aggregate. 
The U. S. Census of Religious Bodies tells us that 
all the Protestant denominations combined, not 
counting the Greek Orthodox and the Roman 
Catholic, have only fifteen churches exclusively Rus- 
sian, with a total of only 811 members. In addition 
there were ten churches with a mixed membership of 
3947, which included a variety of other nationalities 
besides Russian.^* It must be remembered that 
even these figures are likely to be somewhat 
exaggerated, for a Russian pastor of one such 

^* Bureau of the Census, Religious Bodies, igi6, part i, op. cit., 
pp. 78-82. 



104 The Russian Immigrant 

church told me that the number enrolled as mem- 
bers included many whose addresses the church 
no longer knew. Apart from any matter of mem- 
bership, the Protestant Church does touch others 
who are not members. For example, the St. Paul's 
M. E. Church in Jersey City, N. J., permitted 
a group to organize in their own way and to hold 
meetings as they wished in the church rooms. They 
called themselves "The Russian Self-Educated 
Circle." Soon the number of members reached 
about sixty. They had an open forum every 
Saturday night following a lecture, and classes in 
English were held on Monday and Tuesday nights. 
Later, mathematics and civics were added. Volun- 
tarily this group began to make contributions to the 
church expenses and finally several joined the church 
on their own initiative. Now, with entertainments 
and moving pictures added, this church has a group 
of about 300 Russians in its settlement work in 
Jersey City and 200 in Elizabethport. The Church 
of All Nations and the Labor Temple in New York 
City have also reached numbers of Russians who 
were not members. The Gary Chapel and Neigh- 
borhood House in Gary, Ind., have tried to help 
all the various nationalities, including the Russian. 
Eight national foreign societies hold meetings in 
the house. There are classes in English, boy scout 
meetings and religious services. Even making due 
allowance for all such work, what the Protestant 
Church is doing is almost negligible in comparison 



Organized Social Forces 105 

with the numbers involved, approximating two 
hundred thousand Russians in the United States. 
Moreover, much of the work is conducted by Rus- 
sians in the Russian language, without any attempt 
to teach English. Among all the Russian churches 
listed in the United States Census, only two used 
the English language as well as the Russian in their 
services. For the most part they are conducted 
on a strict denominational basis, rigidly emphasizing 
certain dogmas. An analysis of fifty tracts printed 
by eight different organizations in Russian and 
collected by the Inter-Church World Movement 
showed that in general they were based on the literal 
divine inspiration theory of the Bible and used "the 
proof text" method. Fourteen were attempts to 
prove some disputed theological dogmas, such as 
the observance of the Sabbath on Saturday instead 
of Sunday. Considering all the phases of its activity, 
therefore, the influence of the Protestant Church in 
Americanizing the Russians is slight. 

American Public and Private Agencies 

The greatest assimilating agency that we have in 
America is the public school. Jane Addams says 
that the only service America is thoroughly equipped 
to offer the immigrant and his children is free 
education. When we consider that in 19 10, accord- 
ing to the census, over one-fourth of the children 
in our schools were of foreign or of mixed parentage. 



io6 The Russian Immigrant 

we can realize something of the service that Is 
being rendered the foreigner in this way. 

Several private agencies, are however, trying to 
meet the needs of the alien. The social settlements 
invite the Russians along with other nationalities. 
One in New York City, for instance, offers its rooms 
for the use of Russian groups who have nowhere else 
to meet. It now has four such groups, and, as a 
result, several individuals have joined the English 
classes and other activities which the settlement 
maintains.^® But the settlement reaches chiefly the 
women and children, and of these not many among 
the Russians. 

The Y.M.C.A. in its industrial departments 
and among the foreign-born has frequently done 
good work for the Russians. The Brooklyn Asso- 
ciation, for one, has organized an English class in 
Brownsville. This class has been popular and has 
already stimulated a number of the men to take out 
citizenship papers. Mr. Harvey Anderson and Mr. 
Thomas Cotton in New York, and Mr. Theodore 
G. Demberg in Philadelphia have also been active. 
They have organized lectures, classes, and informa- 
tion bureaus for the Russians, besides cooperating 
with other welfare agencies in the city. 

The Y.W.C.A., through its International Insti- 
tutes, serves the Russians in various ways. In 
Pittsburgh, for example, it has an information 
service with a paid Russian worker, and any who 

15 Daniels, America via the Neighborhood (N. Y., 1920), p. 227. 



Organized Social Forces 107 

need advice or help can receive it there. Besides 
this, classes in English are conducted in the factory 
districts where the Russians live. 

The Foreign Language Governmental Informa- 
tion Bureau organized by the Committee on Public 
Information of the Government and now affiliated 
with the Red Cross has been rendering notable 
service as a connecting link between the Government 
and the alien. At first it sent bulletins to the 
Russian papers giving material relating chiefly to 
the war; later it began to give general information 
to Russians. By interpreting our laws, it was the 
means of saving them thousands of dollars of 
income taxes wrongly collected. It has translated 
books on hygiene, technical works, histories of the 
United States, works on citizenship, and historical 
plays for the free use of the foreign language 
schools, churches and societies. Moreover, it has 
sent Ruissian lecturers to all parts of America who 
speak in Bolshevik clubs, workmen's halls and other 
meeting places on such subjects as American Ideals 
or Abraham Lincoln. 

During and since the war, Americanization com- 
mittees have had a mushroom growth. While there 
is no doubt that they have done a great deal for 
the foreigners, they have not touched the life of 
Russians as much as that of other nationalities. In 
illustration of this: an investigator of Russian condi- 
tions for a department of our Government says, 
"The Pittsburgh public school authorities are 



io8 The Russian Immigrant 

carrying on Americanization campaigns, aided by 
the Chamber of Commerce, which every so often 
Invites the 'leaders' of the foreign-born to a dinner. 
As far as the Russians are concerned the results of 
this work are Invisible." ^^ Mr. George Creel, Head 
of the Committee on Public Information of the 
Government during the war says, "Americanization 
activities have largely been stupid when they were 
not malignant. . . . The sinister attempts of em- 
ployers to identify Americanization with industrial 
submlssiveness are with us to-day as in the past." ^'^ 
A Russian priest in Cleveland expressed his feelings 
about the Americanization work by saying, "If I 
came to Russia and they made me disown everything 
dear to me and swear I loved hard work In the 
factory and bad housing I would never become a 
Russian." Mr. Sibray, the United States Immigra- 
tion Commissioner in Pittsburgh, says, "Our Ameri- 
canization committees are largely a sham. On the 
average they think merely of getting the foreigner 
to take out citizenship papers and that is the last 
thing that ought to be done." A social organization 
in 1920 sent a Russian officer to make a study of the 
Russians in Cleveland and asked him to visit the 
Americanization committee because it has done 
notable work for many of the nationalities. In his 
written report, after questioning what the committee 
had done for the Russians, he said, "Almost none 

1^ From a letter, of which the author has a copy. 
^''Foreign Born, Jan., 1920, p. 19. 



Organized Social Forces 109 

of the Russians knew anything about America, 
Americanization committees, or the Y.M.C.A." 

A quotation from one of the Russian papers is 
characteristic of the feeling of most of the Russians 
with whom the writer talked: "Many Americaniza- 
tion committees exist only on paper. They make 
much noise, praise themselves in the newspapers, 
but they do not do much good. . . . They mostly 
laugh about the poor foreigners. ... If they want 
to help, they must come with love in their hearts." ^^ 

No doubt the Russians at the present time are 
difficult to reach because they have suffered from 
the fact that the public has associated them with 
the Bolsheviks in Russia. The Americanization 
committees are contending with a difficult problem 
and have naturally confined their efforts to the 
nationalities that responded most readily. 

Government agencies such as the California 
Immigration Commission have done some construc- 
tive work in giving information to Russians and in 
forcing Americans to improve working conditions 
for their employees. ^^ This commission has realized 
that one of the important tasks of all Americani- 
zation work is the education of the American 
employer in his responsibility toward the workman. 
One reason that American agencies fail to do more 
is that large numbers of the Russians are illiterate, 
and this fact is not sufficiently taken into considera- 

18 From Pravda, Sept. 30, 1919. 

13 Davis, Immigration and Americanization, op. cit., pp. 440-473. 



no The Russian Immigrant 

tion. The U. S. Immigration Commission in 1910 
found that out of a total of 7,390 Russians interro- 
gated, 29.5 per cent admitted that they could not 
read and write. ^** The illiterates among the Rus- 
sians entering this country for the five years from 
19 10-19 14, when the war stopped immigration, 
roughly averaged 35 per cent.^^ As the average 
Russian at the port of entry would probably claim 
that he was literate if he could read anything at 
all, these figures are probably low. If, then, over 
one-third of the Russians are illiterate it is not 
strange that they do not learn English, especially 
when it is realized that they are practically isolated 
from Americans and that they live, sleep and work 
together. Since an average of 35 per cent are illiter- 
ate and a much larger number can read but httle in 
their own language, how can we expect them to 
keep up with a mixed class of various nationalities? 
In Mr. Cole's study in Chicago, out of 112 Russian 
workmen, 80 said they could speak some English, 
but only 12 claimed to be able to read it, and in 
the case of these 12 no test was made. The fact 
is that there have been few scientific attempts made 
to understand how to help the Russian learn English. 
As Professor Petrunkevitch of Yale says: 

Although ostensibly for the benefit and instruction of 
uneducated and foreign workmen [the night schools] are, as 

20 U. S. Immigration Commission, Abstracts of Reports, vol. i, 
table 77, pp. 438-442- 

21 Calculated from the U. S. Bureau of Immigration, Annual 
Reports of the Commissioner-General, table 7, pp. 20-21, 1910; 
pp. 20-21, 1911; pp. 74-75i 19"; PP- 46-47. 1913; PP- 42-43. I9i4« 



Organized Social Forces in 

at present constituted, in reality of very little help. The 
Russian workman has first to learn English before he can 
understand instruction in other subjects ; but even in this, he 
becomes quickly discouraged. He is a stranger to the 
teacher, who does not take into account his peculiar psychol- 
ogy. A few days, perhaps a few weeks of most strenuous 
work in the evening after the day's work at the factory, and 
the Russian workman gives up in despair.^^ 



Russian Non-Political Organizations 

In spite of the agencies we have listed, the 
foreign-born Russians in the aggregate are largely 
untouched. Probably more have been reached by 
the Foreign Language Information Service than by 
any other means, for in addition to other methods, 
It sends out Information through the Russian 
press. 

The Russians have a mass of organizations of 
the small non-polItlcal type In various parts of 
America. There are a few trade unions which are 
either Russian or else have Russian branches — for 
example, the Russian-Polish department of the 
Union of Cloakmakers, the Russian branch of the 
Union of Men's and Women's Garment Workers, 
the Society of Russian Bootmakers, and the Society 
for Russian Mechanics. All of these admit Russian 
Jews as well as other Russian nationalities. 

There are also cultural-educational societies, of 

22 Petrunkevitch, Alexander, "The Russian Problem in the United 
States," The Standard, Feb., 1920, p. 176. 



112 The Russian Immigrant 

which, perhaps, the largest is Nauka (Science). 
This was organized in 1905 and had in 19 18 six 
branches. ^^ Besides paying a sick benefit of $5 a 
week and $200 in case of death, the society has a 
reading room and organizes lectures, concerts and 
socials. Other similar ones are Znamenie (The 
Sign), Samo Obrazovanie (The Society of Self- 
Education), Prosvishenie (Enlightenment), and the 
Society of Russian Citizens. In Boston and some 
other places there are branches of a Society of 
Mutual Aid for Russian Workers. It is their aim 
to have one member who will be expert on some one 
particular need of the Russian, such as: sending 
money to Russia, purchasing steamship tickets, 
employment, housing, and so forth. Since the 
organization is poor, all such activities have to be 
carried on voluntarily. The regulations of the 
society recognize the dangers involved and provide 
that no one so appointed shall have a secret arrange- 
ment with any company or agent whereby he makes 
a profit. 

In the past few years a number of societies have 
sprung up which relate directly to the Russian 
revolution. Thus, in Los Angeles, there was formed 
a Society to Help Free Russia; in other places there 
were organizations for the sending home of political 
emigrants. While these sound very well as names, 
in practice most of them are very small and at 

23 Vilchur, M., The Russians in America, op. cit., pp. 124-125 (tr. 
from the Russian). 



Organized Social Forces 113 

best serve as centers providing a social rendezvous 
and an occasional lecture, but rarely affording any 
contacts with Americans or giving much information 
on America. Two Russian educational institutions 
are, however, doing extensive work. One is the 
Russian Collegiate Institute in New York City, 
which received a grant of $10,000 from the Carnegie 
Foundation and raised $6,000 from other sources. 
Its purpose is "to offer to Russian workmen within 
a small radius of New York City useful knowledge 
which will enable them to better their economic and 
social position." ^* All political subjects are for- 
bidden and the school is open to all, whether pro- or 
anti-Bolshevik. 

The institute is divided into three departments : ( i ) 
preparatory or night school, (2) academic, and (3) tech- 
nical. The night school prepares the workmen for entrance 
into such institutions as Cooper Union. Instruction is given 
two hours every evening except Saturday and Sunday. The 
subjects taught are English, Russian, geography, history, 
arithmetic, algebra, trigonometry, physics and chemistry. 

Besides these courses, the institute is carrying on 
lectures before larger groups than can attend the 
classes. Its secretary claims an average weekly 
attendance of 1,400 from January to May, 1921. 

A similar school, called the Russian People's 

24 From an article by Alexander Petrunkevitch, the President of 
the Institute, in The Standard, Feb., 1920, op. cit., pp. 177-178. 



1 14 The Russian Immigrant 

University, was started in Chicago with a foundation 
of $10,000 contributed by interested Russians. It 
has adopted also a non-political attitude and in May, 
19 19, had an enrolment of about eighty. The 
courses in agriculture proved to be the most popular 
since many Russians desire to prepare for such work 
in Russia. Undoubtedly these institutions are doing 
something toward giving the Russian a better under- 
standing of America, but they exist in only two 
cities. Even taking into consideration all the 
societies mentioned, the Russian is relatively unor- 
ganized, as is shown in the 19 17 survey of E. I. 
Omeltchenko, already mentioned. He concludes 
that in respect to organizations the real Russians 
have the least of all. "They are out of touch with 
every kind of cultural and educational influence both 
American and Russian." ^^ 

Russian Political Organizations 

Before the author started visiting the Russian 
colonies, he secured lists of Russian socialistic, 
anarchistic, and radical clubs. The names and 
addresses included over 200. Probably the largest 
and most extensive of these was the Union of 
Russian Workers, which has branches in every large 
industrial center and in many small mining and 
manufacturing communities. It unites all the Rus- 
sian workers affiliated with it, regardless of their 

25 Omeltchenko, E. I., On the Question of the Organization of the 
Russian Co/o«y (N. Y., 1917), p. 5. (C/. footnote Preface, p. viii.) 



Organized Social Forces 115 

trades, into one revolutionary organization, endorses 
direct action, and, in general, is sympathetic with 
anarchistic theories. Each branch is composed of 
not more than sixty members. It has no relation to 
other American organizations, although it is in 
friendly affiliation with some Russian anarchistic 
groups.^*' Its purpose is given in the agreement of 
the Federation of the Union of Russian Workers 
of the United States and Canada. ^^ 

THE FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF THE 

FEDERATION 

The present Society is divided into two opposing classes: 
on one side the unprovided laborers and peasants who have 
created the world's riches with their labor; on the other 
side the rich men who grabbed all those riches into their 
hands. 

Many times has the unprovided class arisen against the 
parasitic rich and their trusty servant and defender, the 
Government, for the purpose of gaining full liberation from 
the yoke of capital and authority, but each time suffers 
defeat because it does not know clearly the ultimate purpose 
and the means whereby to gain it and becomes a tool in the 
hands of its enemies. 

The strife between those classes is continuing also at the 
present time, and will be finished only when the working 
masses, organized into a class, will understand their true 
interest and will take possession by means of forceful revo- 
lution of all the wealth of the world. 

28 Ibid., p. 6. 

27 Translation given to the author at the Detroit office of the 
United States Department of Justice. 



ii6 



The Russian Immigrant 



Having accomplished such transposition, and having de- 
stroyed at the same time all the institutions of Government 
and authority, the unprovided classes vi^ill have to announce 
a society of free producers who will be anxious to satisfy 
the needs of every separate individual which later, in turn, 
will give to the society its labor and knowledge. 

To reach our purpose, we, first of all, prove the necessity 
of creating a wide class of revolutionary organization of 
toilers, which, leading a direct fight with all the institutions 
of capital and authority, must teach the laboring class 
initiative and self-action in all its undertakings, developing 
within it in this manner a recognition of the necessity of 
the unavoidability of a Universal Strike — Social Revolution. 

Organizing, therefore, into Unions of Russian Work- 
ers, We, as a part of the toilers of the whole world, will 
strive in all our future work that the principles underlying 
the Federation will always be a leading thread in the matter 
of organization of the wide masses of Russian Immigrants 
for the speediest liberation of Russia and of humanity. 

In spite of these radical statements, the unions 
are in reality quite peaceful, according to E. I. 
Omeltchenko, and existed for seven years without 
molestation until U. S. Attorney General Palmer 
declared them illegal. They did circulate a surpris- 
ing amount of radical literature, however, for the 
author found the following pamphlets in Russian on 
sale : ^* 



"What is Anarchism?" by Novomirski. 

-® The titles are, of course, translations from the Russian, in which 
the pamphlets are printed. 



Organized Social Forces 117 

"God and Government," by Mihael Bakunin. 

"Manifesto of Anarchist-Communists," by Novomirski, 

"Whom Does the Soldier Serve?" Anonymous. 

"The Question of Communism," by A. Karelin. 

"The Chicago Drama — First of May, 1886," Anonymous. 

"The Moral Beginning of Anarchism," by Peter Kro- 
potkin. 

"The Speech of Matreni Presashuk before the Kiev War 
Tribunal the 19th of July, 19 18." 

It is unnecessary to quote from these for the titles 
and authorship show, for the most part, that they 
are radical. The pamphlet concerning the soldiers 
tries to prove that they simply serve the rich; that 
on the Chicago Drama describes America as a land 
where there are more hungry, more oppressed, more 
slaves than In any other land. It tells of "the 
shedding of the workers' blood" In Chicago by the 
militia, and says that up to the present time many 
thousands of people have lost their lives fighting 
for freedom in America, and that the laws are made 
simply to protect the power of the rich and private 
property. 

One of the most dangerous Is the Manifesto of 
Anarchist-Communists. In one place it says: "We 
may, therefore, formulate our tactics thus: By 
participating In the struggle of the working class, 
guiding it, and uninterruptedly widening and deepen- 
ing that struggle, kindle and maintain the conflagra- 
tion of civil war until we have torn up by the roots 
Capitalism and Government." These pamphlets. 



Ii8 The Russian Immigrant 

however, are circulated by only a few. Many Rus- 
sians whom the author interviewed did not seem to 
be interested in the propaganda but rather in having 
a social club and in attending classes. 

Besides this Union there are many branches of the 
Russian division of the Socialist Party. In affiliation 
with these are a number of "Societies for the Help 
of the Russian Revolution." In 19 15 eighteen 
branches joined together in a federation representing 
300 members, and by the fall of 19 17 there were 
29 branches with an active paying membership of 
600. Following the revolution the activity of these 
branches increased to such an extent that in 19 19 
there were 150 branches and over 12,000 members.^® 
Moreover, a radical element that did not believe 
in parliamentary procedure began to agitate in favor 
of direct action. Before long the entire socialist 
party of Russians had accepted this position. There 
were three chief reasons: ^^* 

(a) The vast increase of new members, 

(b) Allied intervention in Russia, 

(c) Dislike of Denikine and Kolchak, the leaders in the 
civil war against the Bolsheviks. 

Many Russian socialists even plotted to overthrow 
the conservative leaders of the American party, but 
were thwarted when the executive committee threw 
out all non-American citizens. As a result of this 

29 Omeltchenko, Russian- American Register, IQ20, op. cit., p. 232. 
29a Ibid, p. 232. 



Organized Social Forces 119 

action, the Russian socialists, together with radicals 
from other groups, held a congress toward the end 
of 19 19, which resulted in the formation of the 
American Communist party. A few breaking away 
from the others joined the American Communist 
Labor Party. Pravda (Truth) with a circulation 
of between three and four thousand was one period- 
ical which supported their position. ^'^ This Com- 
munist Party also circulated considerable radical 
propaganda and in 1920 wholesale arrests of Rus- 
sians followed. The radical Russian papers, Pravda 
and Novy Mir, were suppressed." 

In spite of these facts concerning the activities 
of the central organization, many of the socialist 
clubs visited by the author appeared to cater merely 
to the social impulse of the Russian. As is usually 
the case where some definite group activity arises, 
whether it be in connection with a saloon or whether 
it be a Communist club, some useful things were 
accomplished. For example. In New York City 
during the spring of 19 18, 23 Russian organizations 
joined together to form a "soviet," ^^ with head- 
quarters at 133 East 15th Street.^^ The chief 

^'^ Ibid., p. 233. 

31 Although not used as authority in this study, the Report of the 
Joint Legislative Committee Investigating Seditious Activities, 
Revolutionary Radicalism (Albany, 1920), in Chaps, v and vi 
PP- 739"8i8, treats of the formation of the Communist parties. 

32 A soviet is a council made up of the representatives of various 
organizations or professions. 

33 Some disbanded, others dropped out, and in 1919 the secretary 
said there were only thirteen left. The principal ones were: The 
Federation of Russian Workers, The Society of Russian Peasants, 



I20 The Russian Immigrant 

feature of the activities in the building was the Soviet 
School. According to the secretary it was started 
by placing advertisements in the Russian papers and 
by holding large meetings and urging enrolment. 
By this means, in 19 19, over 300 paid students were 
secured, and there were more applicants than there 
was room. Russian and English classes were started 
first, and later automobile and electrical classes, 
courses in algebra, history, astronomy and agricul- 
ture. If ten students desired some new course, the 
management arranged for it. If even a single 
individual left on the ground that the teacher was 
not satisfactory, a committee was appointed to 
investigate. Each student paid ten cents an hour 
for his class and each teacher received a dollar and 
a half. While undoubtedly considerable propaganda 
was circulated, the majority of the classes were in 
subjects which, by their nature, are not easily used 
for that purpose. 

In Boston the author visited a club on Dec. 14, 
19 19. Hanging on the wall was a certificate of 
incorporation which read: 

Mutual Aid Association of Workmen from Russia for 
the purpose of paying death or funeral benefits not exceed- 
ing two hundred dollars, and disability benefits not exceeding 
ten dollars per week. The association shall maintain a 
library and conduct lectures for the purpose of educating 
its members and also assist them in raising the standard of 

The Society of Dock Workers, and two anarchistic groups publish- 
ing Bread and Freedom and The Workman and Peasant. 



I 



Organized Social Forces 12 1 

their living. The membership is limited to persons of Rus- 
sian birth and descent. 

The charter was granted by the State of Massachu- 
setts on Dec. 6, 19 15. 

On the walls were pictures of all the Russian 
revolutionary leaders, Gorky, Lenin, Trotsky and 
others, and a certificate of membership in the 
Communist Party hung on the wall. The club had 
both men and women members. Classes in Russian 
and arithmetic met nightly and all the leading 
Russian daily newspapers were accessible. A buffet 
which served soft drinks actually paid for the rent 
of the room, which was twenty dollars a month. The 
club also maintained a school for the children of 
members which met three times a week. As far as 
one could judge, although the club included political 
elements, it also met a legitimate social and educa- 
tional need, and to that extent was constructive. 
After listening for hours to study classes in the 
various Communist clubs, one could but admit that 
they do attempt to teach their own members. They 
also have merit In that they do not go over the 
heads of the illiterate workers. Still, such clubs 
also have lectures on Communism and Bolshevism, 
and there is little doubt that part of the propaganda 
work then going on In the club just described was 
directed against our political system and American 
Ideals. 

In addition to these groups the representative of 



122 The Russian Immigrant 

the Soviet Government, Mr. Martens, formed a 
Technical Department of his Soviet Bureau. Its 
purpose was to organize and register all the tech- 
nical, industrial and professional strength of the 
Russian colony in America to aid in building Russia 
into a Communistic Socialistic Republic.^* As was 
testified to in the deportation hearing of Mr. 
Martens: "This section has organized, throughout 
all America, associations for technical assistance to 
Soviet Russia, which now number more than ten 
thousand members." ^^ The societies which were 
organized plan to send not only workers, but also 
certain branches of production as a unit, with both 
machinery and workmen. The popularity of the 
plan and the extent of sympathy which exists toward 
Soviet Russia is attested by the fact that it was 
possible to secure 10,000 volunteers. 

In spite of all that can be said in favor of these 
educational programs, they are Russian in their 
make-up and scope and certainly do not, in the main, 
make the Russian love America or her institutions, 
nor do they provide contacts with them. There may 
be a few Russians who can say, as did one who wrote 
to a government bureau, "The American socialists 
helped me to love America. Then I understood 
that America is not only composed of capitalists and 

3* Circular on "Technical Department of the Soviet Bureau in 
America," published by the representative of the Russian Socialistic 
Federated Soviet Republic in America. 

35 Brief on behalf of Mr. Martens argued before the Department 
of Labor in 1921 (New York), p. 48. 



Organized Social Forces 123 

bourgeois. Many great inventors were Americans." 
But they seem to be rare. For the majority, such 
clubs, while fulfilling a perfectly proper and natural 
educational and social function, actually do stimulate 
distrust of our government and her institutions. 

The Russian and American Press 

The newspapers and journals printed in Russian 
in the United States have had a long and checkered 
career. The first to be published was the Alaska 
Herald, a bi-lingual semi-monthly periodical in 
Russian and English. The English material was 
arranged to interest Americans, and treated phases 
of the political and social life of Russia. The 
remainder gave items interesting to the Russians 
about American life and laws, or about the Russian 
colonies in Alaska and San Francisco. It was not 
until 1889 that another periodical, the Sign, a 
weekly, was issued ; this lasted less than a year. From 
that time on, there has been a constant appearance 
and disappearance of periodicals and newspapers. 
M. Vilchur ^^ lists 52 others, of which 18 were 
discontinued during the first year of publication, 12 
during the second year, 7 during the third year; 
only 5 are now published in 192 1. Of these five the 
oldest started in 1902. 

At present there are four Russian dailies published 
in the United States. A fifth, the Novi Mir (The 
New World) was suppressed by the Government in 

36 Vilchur, The Russians in America, op. cit., pp. 114-117. 



124 ^^^ Russian Immigrant 

1920 because it was affiliated with the Communist 
Party in America. The I.W.W. weekly in Chicago, 
however, has been permitted to appear regularly, 
and is sent through the mail. 

The history of the Novi Mir is worth recording, 
as showing how politics enter into the management, 
and so into the news given to the Russian readers. 
The Novi Mir was founded in 191 1 by the Russian 
Socialist Publishing Association and represented the 
Social Democrats or Mensheviks, as the party is 
termed in Russia. The editorial board was elected 
by the 300 Russian members of the Socialist Publish- 
ing Association. At first the entire nine members of 
the board of management were Mensheviks. Grad- 
ually, after the paper became prosperous, the 
original 300 members dropped away until there 
were only 75 who remained active. Now, under 
the rules of the Association, anyone who had been 
a member of the Socialist Party for six months could 
join by paying one dollar. The Russian Bol- 
shevik sympathizers decided to secure control 
of the paper. They persuaded Buharin and Chu- 
duafsky, both Bolsheviks, to come from Sweden 
in 19 16 with the intent of placing them on the 
editorial staff. Under the rules of the manage- 
ment no one could get more than $15 in this 
capacity and the result was a dearth of good 
writers, so that it was easy to secure the positions 
for these able writers. Every month the Bol- 
sheviks brought in new members to the Association 



Organized Social Forces 125 

until they had secured a majority vote and won 
control, whereupon all the Menshevik members 
of the board resigned." Leon Trotsky was on the 
staff from Jan. 15, 1917, to March 27, 1917. In 
1916 the Association, because it was opposed to 
war, passed a resolution refusing the acceptance of 
war loan advertisements. In October, 19 17, the 
second class mailing privilege was withdrawn by the 
post office department. In November, 19 17, the 
paper was excluded from circulation in the United 
Kingdom. In 19 18 many copies of the paper were 
held by the postal authorities; in the second half 
of July, out of fourteen issues printed, ten were so 
withheld. By August 12, 19 18, thirty-seven issues 
of the paper had been declared non-mailable under 
the Espionage Act. On August 15 th a disloyalty 
order was issued, denying the paper the privilege of 
receiving mail. In 1920 the paper was raided by 
agents of the Lusk committee and its printing presses 
were damaged; since then it has been closed. In 
19 1 8 the editor-in-chief was Gregory Weinstein, 
who made the following statement regarding the 
paper, ^* "Novi Mir is a revolutionary Socialistic 
organ, supporting the Soviet government of Russia. 
There is no connection between our party and the 
I.W.W. Some of our aims may be similar, but we 
do not work together. Novi Mir was excluded from 

3^^ According to Alex. Gumberg, a member of the Menshevik 
stafiF, in a statement to the author. 

38 From an unpublished statement as given to a representative 
of the Carnegie Foundation. 



126 The Russian Immigrant 

the mails here because we republished in our columns 
an article from the Hearst paper, the Washington 
Times, which said that the money to carry on the 
war should be raised by taxing capital." He claimed 
for the paper a circulation of 8,000. 

Two of the four other dailies, the Novoye Russ- 
koye Slovo and the Russky Golos are published 
daily, including Sunday, while the Americanskiya 
Izvestia and Svobodnaya Russiya do not appear on 
Sunday. Ayer's American Annual for 1921 gives 
the circulation for Novoye Russkoye Slovo as 32,256 
(P. O. statement) and the Russky Golos as 35,143 
(published statement). ^^ The names of the other 
two papers are not given at all. Joseph B. Polonsky, 
already referred to as Manager of the Russian sec- 
tion of the Foreign Language Information Service 
of the American Red Cross, stated that the sworn 
and published statements were worthless and his 
testimony was corroborated by Mr. Vilchur, one 
time editor of the Russkoye Slovo. In the opinion of 
Mr. Polonsky, instead of 32,000, the Novoye Russ- 
koye Slovo had a circulation of 10,000 and the 
Russky Golos about 15,000. He thought the Ameri- 
kanskiya Izvestia had a circulation of 3,000 and the 
Svobodnaya Russiya 3,000. As for the I.W.W. 
paper. The Golos Trushenka, instead of 6,000 
claimed by the management, he thought no more 
than 700 copies were sold. It must be remembered 

39 Ayer, N. W., American Neiuspaper Annual and Directory, 
1921 (Philadelphia), p. 1305. 



Organized Social Forces 127 

in considering such figures that these papers circulate 
among Jews as well as the Slavs, with whom we are 
primarily concerned. 

Besides the papers already named, there are two 
brotherhood publications which go to all the 
members of their respective organizations. Svyet, 
the organ of the Russian Orthodox Mutual Aid 
Society, is a weekly, and Pravda, the organ of the 
Russian Brotherhood organization, is a semi-weekly. 
The sworn statement of circulation of Pravda is 
10,200,*° but only 3,000 reach Russians." Svyet has 
a sworn circulation of 7,000,*° but the great majority 
are Karpatho-Russians.*^ Neither paper has much 
influence among the Russian colony, according to 
Mr. Polonsky. The Inter-Racial Council, after 
using the advertising columns of these two papers, 
says: "Experience has shown us that these papers 
have very little effect on molding the opinion of 
their readers." Most of the readers of the Brother- 
hood papers also have access to the Russian dailies. 
In view of the large circulation of the latter, and 
their presence in every Russian club and library, 
and since they were regarded by all the Russians 
with whom the writer has talked as the most 
influential, the author has subjected the four dailies 
to a special analysis, for the numbers from Jan. 15 
to 21, 192 1 — a single week. This gives at least 
indicative results, since the papers' general make-up 

"^^ Ibid., op. cit., p. 1305. 

*i Omeltchenko, Russian-A merican Register, op. cit., p. 214. 

*2 Ibid., p. 212. 



128 The Russian Immigrant 

and the character of the articles are fairly uniform 
from week to week. Two of the newspapers were 
examined, both before and after the date selected, 
and no particular change in the character of the news 
from that of the week selected was noted, nor was 
there any special event in that week, which would 
give undue weight to one class of items. The purpose 
of this classification was primarily to discover how 
much space was devoted to America and her insti- 
tutions. With this in view, the main classifications 
were : A — News Concerning Foreign Countries, 
B — News Distinctly American, C — News Relating 
Directly to the Activities of Russians in America, 
D — Topics Non-Classifiable as Strictly American, 
Russian, or Foreign. The editorials were placed in 
a class by themselves and were analyzed separately. 
No attempt was made to separate news from 
opinion. Many articles were a clever admixture 
of both. 

Each of the main headings was further subdivided 
and a considerable number of items were classified 
as to whether they were distinctly favorable, dis- 
tinctly unfavorable, or indifferent to the subject 
heading. After reading the classification given 
below, the method should be clear to the reader, 
but a few concrete illustrations may be an added 
help. For example, when one newspaper said a 
law was reactionary, this was considered unfavor- 
able to the American Government. On the other 
hand, an item reporting the Senate as considering 



Organized Social Forces 129 

the passage of a resolution freeing political prisoners 
was considered indifferent. The term American 
"imperialist" was included with that of employers 
and capitalists because as used it apparently referred 
to business men interested in foreign trade. Under 
the heading, Unfavorable to the Methods of Ameri- 
can Educational, Religious, or Welfare Institutions, 
were listed the attacks against the American public 
school, the Red Cross and the Relief Administration. 
Items relating to American institutions or achieve- 
ments in general, such as an account of the develop- 
ment of agricultural machinery, was placed under 
the head "B-9, Other News About America." 

The writer realizes that the classification of 
material as "favorable" or "unfavorable" and 
"indifferent" is open to the objection that it is 
subjective. Nevertheless, most articles by their tone 
or contents indicate rather distinctly whether they 
are hostile to American institutions or whether their 
effect would be to promote good will toward 
America. When there was doubt about an item, it 
was classified as indifferent. Some of the material 
which would be considered unfavorable to America 
by many Russian readers was purposely not included 
as such; for example, such items as: the discharge 
of a teacher in Buffalo for belonging to a radical 
party, the policing of the city against reds, the 
reduction of wages by an employer. On the other 
hand, items such as : U. S. Attorney General Palmer's 
action in arresting Russians reported illegal, the 



130 The Russian Immigrant 

killing of a striker by a United States soldier and 
"the terrorizing of the countryside by soldiers" were 
considered as unfavorable material because of the 
distinctly hostile tone of the articles. Although a 
large aggregate of unfavorable material was found, 
it must be remembered that the tabulation was made 
while there was still considerable feeling over the 
Russian Revolution. It is possible that the results 
would have been quite different two years later. The 
classification follows for the four papers, showing 
the amount of space in newspaper column inches : ^^ 

A. News Concerning Foreign Countries 

Golos Slovo Izvestia Russiya 

1. Relating to Soviet Russia 744 1,009 5^^ 549 

2. Relating to Other Countries 715 408 319 534 

Total Foreign Countries. .. . 1,459 1,417 841 1,083 

B. News Distinctly Relating to America or Americans 

Golos Slovo Iz<vestia Russiya 

1. American Government: 

Distinctly favorable o o o o 

Distinctly unfavorable 58 49 135 124 

Indifferent 25 74 50 24 

2. American History: 

Distinctly favorable to America o 44 o O 

Distinctly unfavorable o 24 o o 

Indifferent o o o o 

3. American Political Parties 0300 

4. American "Imperialists," Em- 

ployers or Capitalists: 

Distinctly favorable to them.. 0000 

Distinctly unfavorable 124 35 75 97 

IndifiFerent 27 o 32 33 

5. Accidents in Industry 0900 

6. Strikes and Labor Unions: 

Distinctly favorable to them. .0000 

*^ Width of columns was two and one-quarter inches. Headings 
were included. 



Organized Social Forces 131 

T^. . , , . Golos Slovo IzvesttaRussiya 
Distinctly unfavorable to con- 
servative unions o 49 o o 

Indifferent to them 55 31 29 

7. Ihe American Press: 

Distinctly favorable to some 

paper o o o o 

Distinctly unfavorable o 7 6 o 

Indifferent o o o o 

8. American Educational, Religious 

or Welfare Institutions: 
Distinctly favorable to their 

Methods o o o o 

Distinctly unfavorable o o 18 si 

Indifferent 2 3 10 o 

9. Other News About America: 

Distinctly favorable to America 0000 

Distinctly unfavorable o 14 28 29 

A'l other II 3^ ^2 ^ 

Total Distinctly Favorable o 44 o o 

Total Distinctly Unfavorable... 182 178 272 281 

Total Indifferent 120 154 173 103 

Grand Total About America 302 376 445 384 

C. News Distinctly Relating to the Activities of 
Russians in America 

„ ■ ^ . Golos Slovo Izvestia Russtva 

1. Russian Communism, Socialism 

or I. W. W.'ism in America 
(including items on political 
prisoners and those de- 
ported) : 
Distinctly favorable to such 

forms of radicalism 20 o 247 4c 

Distinctly unfavorable o o o o 

Indifferent 19 22 ^^ 

2. Russian Literature or Education 

for Russians in America... 126 172 200 47 

3-5«l>g'«o 60 o 23 22 

4. Recreation 60 219 96 5 

5. Cooperatives g 2 4 o 

6. Other Russian Societies 19 65 ,1 ^ 

7. Russian Colonies in General.... 37 o 283 4 

'^°*^' 350 480 1,083 134 



132 The Russian Immigrant 

D. News not Classified as Strictly American, Russian or Foreign 

Golos Slovo Izvest'ta Russiya 

1. Editorials (classified and anal- 

yzed later) 126 182 212 192 

2. Poems, Stories and Anecdotes.. 164 245 125 i6o 

3. Crime 15 124 11 52 

4. Remaining Items 196 170 20 13 

Total 491 721 368 417 

Grand Total for the Week. 2,602 2,994 2,737 2,018 

The large total of unfavorable material is signifi- 
cant. In any American newspaper there would, 
no doubt, be items which would be so classified, but 
there would also be compensating favorable articles 
which in the aggregate would far outweigh the 
others. In all four newspapers the author found 
only forty-four inches of space which seemed to him 
distinctly favorable to America, while 913 were 
distinctly unfavorable. Even if the evaluation of 
the items given above Is disregarded, the amount 
of space given to the various subjects is significant. 

In the Golos and Russiya, over one-half of all the 
items are devoted to foreign countries and over 
one-quarter to Soviet Russia. In the Slovo over 
one-third of the space was filled with material 
relating to Soviet Russia and nearly half to foreign 
countries, while the Izvestia, which gives the least 
space of all to foreign affairs, devotes nearly one- 
third of the paper to them. To things American, 
in the Golos, there was only a total of 302 inches of 
space, and 206 inches of this were devoted to items 
about imperialists, capitalists, employers, strikes. 



Organized Social Forces 133 

and labor unions — all topics likely to give a foreign 
worker an unfavorable impression. In the Slovo, 
376 inches of space were found relating to America, 
but about one-third were on these same subjects, 
and 178 inches of space seemed to the writer of the 
present monograph to be unfavorable to America 
in the sense primarily discussed. The Izvestia and 
Russiya had a slightly larger amount of space 
devoted to American items, but their aggregate of 
unfavorable material was also greater by nearly 
200 inches. None of the papers had anything of 
importance about our American newspapers, but 
what seemed far more unfortunate was the dearth 
of information about American educational, relig- 
ious or welfare institutions. In the news of the 
activities of Russians in America considerable 
attention was turned to Russian education, partly, 
as was stated, for the purpose of stimulating the 
reader to be ready to return to Soviet Russia when 
it was possible to do so. But not a single item 
mentioned such a thing as classes in English. There 
was considerable story material, which did not seem 
to have particular educational value. All the papers 
are to be commended in having little or no space 
advertising crime, and even the Slovo, which had 
over double that in any of the others, gave It only 
124 Inches. 

Besides the above classification of all the news, an 
analysis of the editorials as to content and space 
is an indication of the policy of the papers. This 



134 Th^ Russian Immigrant 

analysis follows for each newspaper separately, with 
the translation of the heading in quotation marks 
and a condensed indication of the character of the 
editorial/* 

THE RUSSKY GOLOS 

1. "An Elderly Man Joins the Ranks of the 14 inches 

Communists" 
Applauds Anatole France for his deci- 
sion. 

2. "Keeper of the Public Order" 14 *' 

About the corruption of our police force 
in the cities. One sentence reads, "Bribe- 
taking, that disease of the American po- 
lice, is similar to the same malady under 
the old Tsar's order with this difference, 
that there it permeated all through from 
top to bottom, while with the American 
police it is rare among the rank and file 
but occurs at the top." 

3. "BakhmetefE Goes to Paris" 10 " 

Harding and the new administration 
must demand an accounting from Bakh- 
metefE for the American money he has 
spent. 

4. "Echoes of Wrangel" 18 " 

Scathing attack on France for helping 
Wrangel against Soviet Russia. 

5. " 'If the Child Were Not Afraid, He 30 " 

Would Not Cry' " 

** The translations given are only roughly made in the sense that 
individual words may have been loosely rendered, but the sentences 
as a whole express the spirit of the Russian text. 



Organized Social Forces 135 

The Soviets are no longer afraid; hence 
the capitalists all over the world have 
given up using the phrase "the impending 
fall of Soviet Russia." 

6. "The Polish Nobility and the Polish Sol- 16 inches 

lers 
The Polish nobility deceived the vt^orkers 
into fighting Russia. Nov^^ the workers 
pay for it with hunger and defeat. 

7. "Major Allen Astonished" 8 " 

The Red Cross now admits that ninety 
per cent of the parents of the children 
sent to Soviet Russia are still alive. 

8. "The Next Step — for the Americans" 16 " 

On the departure of the Soviet Bureau, 
"Soviet Russia has done everything she 
could to open trade and make peace with 
America; the next step rests with Amer- 
ica. 



NOVOYE RUSSKOYE SLOVO 

"What Will the State Department Admit?" 8 
Attacks the Department on its record re- 
garding Russia. One sentence reads, "It 
is certainly astonishing that serious peo- 
ple, government people, wish after this to 
make the public believe that America has 
been faithful in her relationships to Rus- 
sia." 

"Again 'Constitutional Assembly' " 16 

Attacks as counter-revolutionary the so- 
called "Constitutional Assembly" of 



136 



The Russian Immigrant 



Kerensky and Milyukov which is meet- 
ing in Paris. 

3. "Five Months" 8 inches 

Congratulates the Novoye Russkoye Slovo 
on the fifth month of the new manage- 
ment of the paper. 

4. "The Question of Russia in the Senate" 12 

Endorses Senator France's resolution 
favoring trade with Russia and states 
that responsible representatives of the 
Russians in America should be heard in 
the Senate Committee. 

5. "Protection Against Disorderly Conduct" 12 

Criticizes a man for attacking the Soviet 
regime. The blockade has made the facts 
difficult to obtain; a better protection 
against radicalism would be cultural 
propaganda. 

6. "Minister Briand" lO " 

His attitude toward Russia. 

7. "The Staff of the 'Workers' ' Paper" 24 " 

Attacks the Amerikanskiya Izvestia. 

8. "The Senate Considers BakhmetefE's Mil- 24 " 

lions" 
Says the Russian colony and part of the 
Russian press can give the Senate inter- 
esting information about the use by 
Bakhmeteff of the American people's 
dollars, 
g. "How You Are Trusted, Comrade-Work- 18 

ers" 
Attacks the other paper for not using 



Organized Social Forces 137 

union labor. Says the condition of labor- 
ers in America is "inhuman." 

10. "The Resolution of Senator Johnson About 30 inches 

Siberia" 
Concerning American intervention in 
Siberia ; one sentence reads, "Let there be 
light in the dark corners of American 
politics, in the matter that served the 
Japanese imperialists and not one of the 
American or Russian people." 

11. "The Departure of the Soviet Bureau" 20 

One sentence reads, "If it were possible 
for the Russian colony to express its real 
feeling they would have given Martens 
an ovation." i 

AMERIKANSKIYA IZVESTIA 

I. "Reaction in France Grows" 25 " 

The French Government now declares the 
General Confederation of Labor illegal, 
although the Confederation has previ- 
ously expelled all the revolutionary ele- 
ment. 
The Decay of the Austrian Government" 11 " 
Austria is bankrupt. 

"The Uniting of Russian 'Democracy' " 22 " 

Attacks the "counter revolutionary" Rus- 
sian leaders meeting in Paris in the name 
of democracy. 

"The Two Revolutionary Groups in Italy" 10 " 
The workers who actually seize the fac- 
tories are far better than those who 
merely talk revolution. 



(( 



138 The Russian Immigrant 

5. "Communication with Vienna Broken" 18 inches 

There is a rumor that Vienna is in the 
hands of the workers. Since they are in- 
ternationalists this will be advantageous. 

6. "America on the Eve of a Mighty Strike" 21 " 

Three millions are out of work. The 
textile workers will fight against wage re- 
ductions, the A. F. of L. against the open 
shop. The workers demand trade with 
Russia. The strike is the real weapon, 
the employers the real enemy. 

7. "Ambassador Bakhmeteff and the Scandal 24 " 

at Washington" 
Senator Norris demands an accounting 
of the money advanced to Bakhmeteff by 
the government. One sentence reads, 
"The advance cost the Russian people 
many lives, much blood." 

8. "France 'Draws Out' the Reds" 10 " 

France is arresting all "reds," among 
them some Americans. One sentence 
reads, "There are 'reds' who are not Rus- 
sians. All workers are 'reds' in the sense 
of being revolutionists." 

9. "Wrangel's Soldiers Conspire" 21 " 

Now at last his soldiers understand the 
truth of the revolution and refuse to 
fight against the Bolsheviks. 

10. "The Moscow International and the Break- 12 

up of the Socialist Parties" 
The Moscow International has divided 
the Socialist ocean in two. 

11. "The Rejected Russians with Their Fami- 38 



Organized Social Forces 139 

lies Leaving the Borders of the United 

States To-morrow" 
A stinging editorial against Attorney 
General Palmer, the United States, and 
the capitalists. In speaking of what the 
Russian immigrant finds here, it says, 
"Instead of happiness — a dried up piece 
of bread, the sweat shop and the dark 
labor of the galley slave, instead of peace 
— perpetual ordering about, interference, 
and in the end deportation — that is the 
fate of the Russian worker and peasant 
in America." 



SVOBODNAYA RUSSIYA 

"Does Russia Wish to Fight?" 26 inches 

Russia has always desired peace but 
propagandists and counter-revolutionists 
continually spread lies and prevent it. 

"Bankrupt Austria" lO " 

The Allies laid such a heavy indemnity 
on her that she has neither bread nor 
money. 

"The Labor War in France" 16 " 

France has ordered the General Federa- 
tion of Labor to disband, but the only 
result has been a labor war. 

"An Unsuccessful Adventure" 14 " 

Poland is criticized for attempting to 
seize Vilna and Grodna. 

"Russia Still in Disgrace" 20 " 



140 The Russian Immigrant 

America preaches humanity, justice, and 
democracy but does not practice these 
principles toward Russia. "In the parts 
of Russia under the control of the White 
Guard, America spends 4,400,000 dollars 
but in Soviet Russia, nothing." 

6. "Industrial America and Russia" 16 inches 

There should be trade between America 
and Russia. 

7. "Unemployment in England" 18 " 

England is condemned for wasting her 
efforts on Ireland and India when she 
has a million unemployed. 

8. "A Summons to Disarmament" 18 " 

General Bliss and Lloyd George are 
among those who urge disarmament, but 
it remains talk and not action. In the 
meanwhile, the harsh peace points towards 
war. 

9. "Afraid of Russia's Being Recognized" 20 

Russian counter-revolutionists urge inter- 
vention because they fear recognition. 

10. "Discord between the Allies" 19 " 

France and England disagree over Tur- 
key, Germany, and Russia. Some are 
benefiting because of this, the worst ele- 
ments in Turkey, for instance. 

11. "Again the White Guards" 15 " 

Internal and external foes fall on Rus- 
sia, yet when she arms to meet the attack, 
the White Guards cry, "Russia is mili- 
taristic." 



Organized Social Forces 141 

In the Golos, every single editorial except one 
within the week examined related directly or Indi- 
rectly to Soviet Russia and that one was a discussion 
of the corruption connected with municipal police in 
America. In the Slovo every editorial related to 
Soviet Russia except three, which dealt with a rival 
newspaper. In the Izvestia every editorial except 
three dealt with conditions in foreign countries. Of 
the three exceptions, one condemned America, an- 
other urged the strike as the only real weapon of the 
workers, and the third accused the United States 
of advancing money, which action resulted in the 
loss of many Russian lives. In the Russiya, besides 
an editorial stating that the world is more likely to 
get war than disarmament, only two dealt with 
America. One of these urged trade between Soviet 
Russia and America, the other accused America of 
hypocrisy in preaching humanity and not helping 
Soviet Russia. 

If the editorials are any criterion of the poKcy 
of the paper, none of these newspapers gives its 
readers much that is favorable to America, while all 
give some space to that which Is unfavorable. Part 
of this may be due to the fact that revolutionists 
who have been driven out from a Tsar's despotism 
have often become influential In the policy of the 
Russian press in this country. Moreover, the 
content of the newspapers Is largely devoted to 
Russia and Russians. It seems only natural that 
this should be so, for hke individuals are interested 



142 The Russian Immigrant 

in like tilings. Their newspapers are mechanisms 
for the dissemination of information interesting to 
a particular group who differ in language, traditions, 
and experience from Americans. Their support 
comes from aliens who are Russians, out of touch 
with the best of America, and it is to be expected 
that they would discuss the life of Russians in 
America, and the condition of the homeland. The 
material presented about Soviet Russia is decidedly 
favorable to the Bolsheviks. The Russian immi- 
grants in America know from personal experience 
something of the tyrannous character of the Tsar's 
government, and from what they read in their 
papers might well think the Bolshevik government 
good. This makes the treatment of Bolshevism by 
our American press stand out in striking contrast. 
Comparatively few Russians are able to read Ameri- 
can papers, but most of them have heard that the 
attitude which is taken therein toward Soviet Russia 
is hostile. 

Summary 

In this chapter we have seen that the organized 
religious and educational forces which surround the 
Russian Slav are largely foreign and un-American. 
The Greek Orthodox Church came to this country 
during the reign of the Tsar, and was aided by the 
Tsar's money. At best it is a Russian influence, 
binding its adherents to the old religious ceremonials 
and retaining the mother-tongue. _ Following the 



Organized Social Forces 143 

revolution many were alienated from its support 
because it failed to endorse the revolution enthusi- 
astically. The work of the American Protestant 
Church with this nationality is slight and is along 
denominational and theological lines rather than 
social. American pubhc and private agencies are 
striving to help the Russian, together with other 
foreign groups, but the magnitude of the problem of 
all the varied foreign-born has prevented them from 
reaching the great majority of Slavs. The barrier 
of illiteracy, and one of the most difficult European 
languages, has made a concentration on other 
nationalities the easiest course. The organizations 
which the Russians themselves have created are 
more potent, but they are largely radical and 
nationalistic. The Russian press in America prints 
little about America and some of what it does print 
is distinctly antagonistic to our government and 
institutions. As was found in regard to other condi- 
tions, the educational and religious opportunities 
open to Russians afford little chance for contacts 
with American life. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE Russian's relation to our government 

Legislation 

Under usual circumstances the ordinary Russian 
in America does not come into contact with our 
government directly, except through the police and 
the law courts. He is nevertheless markedly 
affected by certain legislation. The prohibition 
amendment makes it difficult for him to patronize 
the saloons. In the towns there may be none, in 
the cities illegal resorts may be open but are liable 
to be raided; moreover, the liquor is expensive. 
Incidentally the constant violation of the law which 
he sees going on everywhere cannot but weaken his 
sense of respect for all legislative enactments. This 
may be augmented by violations of ordinances 
against gambling, or even expectoration. If he 
reflects on the matter, it must seem strange to the 
Russian that in Pennsylvania a Sunday baseball 
game is illegal but that there is no prohibition of 
the seven-day week in the steel mill. A Russian 
priest made the comment that the Bible forbids 
work on the Sabbath but says nothing against base- 
ball. 

Although the prohibition law touches many Rus- 

144 



Relation to Our Government 145 

sians, they realize that it applies to everyone. It 
is not discriminatory legislation. There are a num- 
ber of state laws, however, which the Russian feels 
to be particularly directed against foreigners and his 
tendency is to overestimate their effect on him- 
self. Many of these bills are passed for the 
commendable purpose of either compelling him to 
learn English or of stimulating him to take out citi- 
zenship papers, and may be necessary and just. On 
the other hand, enforcement of such legislation is 
difficult in most cases, and the foreigner who is 
arrested for failing to comply, is likely to feel 
unjustly treated. To cite a number of such enact- 
ments : 

Kansas: Unless the alien has filed a declaration of inten- 
tion to become a citizen, his property shall escheat to the 
state, in the event of his death.^ 

Massachusetts: Applicants for admission as attorneys at 
law must be citizens of the United States.^ 

Michigan: Persons not citizens can teach in the public 
schools only if they have filed their intention of becoming 
citizens.^ 

Nebraska: All public meetings — political meetings or 
conventions, the purpose and object of which are the 
consideration and discussion of political or non-political 
subjects of general interest, or relating to the well-being of 
any class or organization — shall be conducted in the English 

^ Laivs of Kansas IQ2I, ch. 185, p. 278. 

2 Letter from the Department of Education of Massachusetts 

to the author cites General La<ws of Massachusetts, ch. 221, sec. 37. 

2 State of Michigan, General School Law (1919), Act 220, p. m. 



146 The Rmsian Immigrant 

language exclusively; providing the provisions of this Act 
shall not apply to meetings or conventions held for the 
purpose of religious teachings, instruction or worship, or 
lodge organizations.* 

Aliens are prohibited from holding any public office in the 
state.^ 

Aliens may not teach in any public, private, or parochial 
school. '^ 

It is illegal for aliens to own, keep, or have firearms in 
their possession.'^ 

New Hampshire : The exclusive use of the English lan- 
guage in all schools in the instruction of children in reading, 
writing, spelling, arithmetic, grammar, geography, physi- 
ology, history, civil government, music and drawing, and 
the compulsory teaching of English to non-English speaking 
persons between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one years in 
evening or special day schools is required. No person or 
corporation shall employ an individual between sixteen and 
twenty-one residing in a district where there is an adequate 
school, unless such person is in school or has been excused for 
a reason satisfactory to the commissioner of education.^ 

Nevada: Only a citizen of the United States or a person 
who has declared his intention of becoming one shall be 
employed in the construction of public works or in any 
office or department of the state. Exception is made in the 
case of convicts, and exchange instructors in the University, 
from North and South American countries.^ 

* Laivs of Nebraska (1919), ch. 234, p. 991. 
^ Ibid., ch. 171, p. 383. 
^ Ibid., ch. 250, p. 120. 
^ Ibid., ch. 140, p. 606. 

8 State Board of Education, Laivs of Ne<w Hampshire (1921), 
sec. 10, p. 24; sec. 6, p. 30; sec. 40, p. 39. 
^ Laijus of Nevada {1919), ch. 168, p. 296. 



Relation to Our Government 147 

A hunting license shall not be issued to any person not a 
citizen of the United States.^" 

New Mexico: The possession of a shot-gun or rifle, or 
the hunting of wild birds, game, or fish, by unnaturalized, 
foreign-born residents is prohibited.^^ 

Oregon: It is unlawful to display or circulate or offer for 
sale any newspaper or periodical except in English or unless 
a literal translation shall be conspicuously displayed.^^ 

Utah: Every alien between the ages of sixteen and forty- 
five who cannot speak, read and write English with the abil- 
ity required for the completion of the fifth grade shall attend 
evening school for at least four hours a week during the 
time there is such a school within two and one-half miles 
of his residence.^^ 

Washington: No person not a citizen or one who has 
not filed his intention of becoming a citizen shall be per- 
mitted to teach in any common school or high school.^* 

The vast majority of Russians are but little 
affected by such legislation, but that they do feel 
that there is discrimination is shown in conversation 
with them and in items in their press. For example, 
the Russkoye Slovo for April 13, 1920, printed 
the following front page article which actually men- 
tions nearly every one of the laws cited above. 

^^ Ibid., ch. 169, p. 297. 

^^ Letter from the attorney genera! of New Mexico to the author 
cites State of New Mexico, Session Laivs 192 1, ch. 113. 
^2 General Laws of Oregon 1920, ch. 17. 
^^ Latvs of Utah I919, ch. 93. 
'^^ Laivs of Washington, ch. 38, p. 82. 



148 The Russian Immigrant 

LIMITATION OF LAWS AGAINST FOREIGNERS IN THE DIF- 
FERENT STATES OF AMERICA 

Americans cannot understand why foreigners who have 
lived here for a certain time are in a hurry to return to 
their home country at the other side of the ocean. 

The foreigners do not want to remain inferior workers, 
or waiters in restaurants, when with their money they can 
lead a much better and more independent life at home. 

Many among them expect to become farmers, many will 
go into commerce and industry and will also exploit their 
own people — America has taught them a great deal. 

But big American industry is worried by this migration 
en masse, it has become interested in the inner life of the 
immigrant and has discovered a number of laws against 
foreigners in the different states of America; here are some 
of them: 

In the state of Nebraska, the foreigners have no right to 
have meetings except for religious purposes. 

In the state of Oregon, foreigners have no right to read 
newspapers and magazines which are not printed in English. 
The same law is proposed in the states of Maryland, Ken- 
tucky and New York. 

In the state of Pennsylvania, the foreigners have no right 
to keep dogs in their houses. 

In the states of Rhode Island, South Dakota, Massachu- 
setts and New York, the foreigners are subject to obligatory 
education until 21 years of age. The citizens are free from 
this obligation much earlier. 

In Utah, the law about obligatory education applies to 
foreigners up to 45 years of age. 



Relation to Our Government 149 

In New Hampshire, the law prohibits the employment of 
people between 16 and 21 years of age if they do not know 
the English language. 

In the states of Michigan, New Hampshire, Tennessee 
and Washington, the foreigners have no right to teach. The 
same law is pending in the state of Massachusetts. 

In the states of New York and Illinois, the widows of 
foreigners have no right to the pensions allowed by the law 
to American citizens. 

In the state of Wyoming, a foreigner cannot act as guide 
in the mountains. 

In the states of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, 
Washington, Nebraska, Kansas, Maryland, Oregon and 
New Hampshire, in case of accident, a foreigner does not 
receive the compensations which are due to the American 
citizen in a similar case. This law exists, notwithstanding 
the fact that among foreigners there are a great many more 
accidents than among Americans. 

In the states of Pennsylvania, Illinois, New Jersey, Cali- 
fornia, Arizona, Rhode Island, Idaho, New Mexico, Wyom- 
ing, foreigners cannot be employed for public works. In 
Arizona, if a foreigner tries to evade this law, he is fined 
$1,000, or imprisoned for six months, or both. 

In the states of Massachusetts and Oregon, the same law 
is before the legislature. In the states of Massachusetts, 
New York, Washington, Illinois, Utah and Louisiana, a 
foreigner is accepted for employment on public works only 
if there is no American to be found in his place. 

In the state of Idaho, the foreigner is accepted for work 
in a factory only if he has his first citizenship papers. 

In the state of Georgia, the foreigners have no right to 
be peddlers. In Delaware, foreigners pay $300 a year for 



150 The Russian Immigrant 

the right to be peddlers. In Virginia, foreigners have no 
right to be junk dealers. In Florida, Virginia, Texas, 
Washington and Ohio, foreigners cannot sell fish and oysters. 

In the state of Maryland, it is proposed not to allow the 
foreigners to carry on commerce at all. 

In the states of Illinois, California, Minnesota, Idaho, 
Texas, Missouri, Nebraska, Indiana, Montana, Arizona, 
Oklahoma, Kentucky, Iowa and Mississippi, foreigners have 
no right to own property, or the ownership is limited between 
five and twenty years. In many places, foreigners are 
allowed to own not more than 320 acres, of are without the 
right of succession. 

In the state of Michigan, foreigners cannot be barbers. 

In the state of Louisiana, foreigners cannot do any public 
printing work. 

Besides these, there are many offending customs in the 
American attitude toward the foreigners. From all this 
it is plain that the relationship to the foreigners is not very 
warm. Foreigners having to bear all this cannot write home 
very enthusiastic letters about America, and, of course, they 
want to leave, the sooner the better. 

If the work of the foreigner is appreciated, if he is needed 
in the mines, in the construction of subways, and for the 
work in the factories and farms, one must give him human 
rights, and one must not offend him at every step. 

Although these laws are very inaccurately 
described and although the intent and effects of 
some of them seem to be exaggerated, the majority 
of the complaints do have some basis in the statutes. 
Many of the laws seem to be efforts to gain credit 
for "Americanization" legislation rather than to be 



Relation to Our Government 151 

constructive attempts to help the foreigner adapt 
himself to American life. Some are a part of the 
aftermath of war and are likely to be repealed. 
Many able American workers among the foreign- 
born decry much of this legislation. The Associate 
Director of the Bureau of Foreign Language Infor- 
mation Service of the American Red Cross has pro- 
tested against the laws hampering our foreign lan- 
guage press. ^^ One provision of "The Trading 
With the Enemy Act" of October 6, 19 17, especially 
annoying to Russian publishers, has been the section 
which compels all foreign-language papers either to 
have a permit from the Post Office Department or 
else to file an advance copy of all matter which has 
to do with the war, with the government of the 
country, with any countries involved in the war, or 
with politics in general, at the local post office where 
it is censored. This law is still in force in 1922 
despite the fact that we have long been out of a 
war emergency. The additional expense involved 
for the Russian newspapers is considerable. 

Probably the income tax law has caused the Rus- 
sians more difficulty than any other. As passed 
in 19 13, it provided for the exemption of people 
whose income was $3,000 (if single) and $4,000 
(if married), but the Treasury Department ruled 
that the exemption "cannot be allowed on a deduc- 
tion in computing the tax of a non-resident alien." ^^ 

15 C/. New York Times Feb. 13, 1921, sec. 7, p. 4. 
1^ Treasury Decisions, vol. 28, no. i, p. 26. 



152 The Russian Immigrant 

Any alien, however, who would sign and swear to 
the following declaration would be considered a 
resident: "It is my intention to establish and main- 
tain a residence in the United States." " The diffi- 
culty with this provision was that the law and the 
blanks were printed only in English. The Russian 
had no means of knowing that such an exemption 
existed, nor was he willing to sign his name to a 
blank which he could not read. Bitter experience 
with various kinds of exploiters had taught some 
and warned others that a signature to an English 
statement was dangerous. Furthermore, the Rus- 
sians were afraid that if they signed this paper they 
would have to become American citizens and could 
not go back to Russia, Many of them had wives 
in the old country, nearly all had parents or brothers 
and sisters there and they did not care to lose the 
opportunity of seeing them again at the close of 
the war. Besides all this, the Government was at 
first rather lax about collections and many Russians 
received their wages without deduction or difficulty 
of any kind. 

After the United States had declared war, the 
Government suddenly began to enforce the provi- 
sions of the act and to collect the back taxes which 
had been due. For those who had money in the 
bank, this merely meant a loss of savings and conse- 
quent misunderstanding, but where there were no 
savings the collector could garnishee wages. Many 

^'^ Ibid., vol. 29, no. 13, p. 24. 



Relation to Our Government 153 

Russians suddenly found that wages were withheld, 
without understanding why. 

Matters were thus troublesome enough for the 
Russian in 1 9 1 7, but in 1 9 1 8 the Government decided 
to hold the employer responsible for withholding 
the wages of the non-resident alien to satisfy the 
income tax requirement. The employers had no 
staff ready for this task nor did they feel it 
was their duty to explain the provisions of the law 
to their employees. The Foreign Language Gov- 
ernmental Information Bureau of our Federal Gov- 
ernment says that it "has complete records of thou- 
sands of aliens who were overtaxed." Of one 
hundred employers the Bureau investigated, only 
fifteen took the trouble to explain the provision to 
their employees in their own language. For exam- 
ple, one steel company employed about 10,000 Rus- 
sians, who were entitled to tax exemptions if they 
filled out the sworn statement, but the company 
found it easier to continue deducting the amount 
from wages.^^ They had not the office force to 
handle these blanks and the inquiries which would 
result. 

The hardships caused by its earlier order no doubt 
influenced the Treasury Department soon after the 
armistice to rule that any alien who would sign the 
following statement should be considered a resident : 
"I am living in the United States and have no defi- 
es From an unpublished investigation of the Foreign Language 
Governmental Information Bureau transmitted to the author. 



154 I'he Russian Immigrant 

nite intention as to when (if at all) I will make 
any other country my home." ^® Furthermore, 
employers were instructed that "an alien who has 
been in the United States for one year and worked 
steadily for three months for the same employer, 
is to be classed as a resident, if he has no fixed 
purpose to leave the United States." ^° He could 
thus be so classed even without signing the proper 
form. This gave the employer an opportunity to 
withhold the tax or not, largely at his discretion. 
Furthermore, the Russian did not understand the 
income tax law or the various decisions affecting 
his payments. The statute and its interpretations 
changed very frequently. 

In February, 19 19, for example, it was further 
altered so that the amount employers were to deduct 
from non-resident aliens was increased to 8 per cent 
to conform to the law of 1918.^^ This created still 
further confusion. Mr. Polonsky of the Foreign 
Language Governmental Information Bureau states 
that "in some cases 8 per cent was deducted from 
non-resident aliens, in others, 12 per cent, in some 
others only 2 per cent." One letter out of hundreds 
to this bureau ^" from Russians will show the per- 
plexity of even the educated ones : 

19 Treasury Department, Internal Revenue Income Tax Form 
1078, Official Bulletin, vol. 3, no. 546, p. 9. 

20 Instruction Sheet Issued by Local Income Tax Offices to 
Employees of Alien Individuals. 

21 United States Statutes at Large, 65th Congress, vol. 40, part i, 
sec. 221, p. 1072. 

22 Foreign Language Governmental Information Service Bureau. 



Relation to Our Government 155 

Natrona, Pa., April 5, 1919. 

I beg the Russian Bureau to help me. The Russian 
immigrants are not able to pay the war taxes. Some time 
ago I read in the papers that only those who earned more 
than $1000 a year have to pay the tax and only on what they 
earned over $1000, and I have paid $12.07. But now in 
the factory they withhold more, and tell me that I myself 
have to pay $145 for last year, and if I have to pay for this 
year also, I will have to pay more than $300. And so I 
have to work, but do not get money to live on. And please 
explain why they force us to take out American papers. 
Those who do not want to take the papers are put out of 
work. And if I take the papers will I be able to go back 
to Russia? And why did they put the Russian people in 
such helpless position? They do not allow us to return to 
Russia, and here it is now impossible to live. 

And I beg the Russian Bureau to answer my prayer, and 
tell me what is going to become of the Russian immigrants. 

The attitude of some of the U. S. Internal Reve- 
nue officers is illustrated by the fact that the presi- 
dent of the Russian Society of Engineers in Chicago 
was refused an exemption blank by subordinates in 
the office until he forced the matter to the Assistant 
Collector himself. He says, "The other Russians 
do not know where to get their rights and have to 
take out first papers, or pay enormous taxes." ^^* A 
government agent reports that in a large Ohio city 
"the Assistant Internal Revenue Officer told me that 
he believed every Russian was a trouble maker; that 
since these Russians do not want to take out their 

22a From an unpublished letter of which the author has a copy. 



156 The Russian Immigrant 

first papers they should not be entitled to exemp- 
tions; that, furthermore, he did not consider it his 
business to instruct employees how to proceed with 
the various forms. From further talk with this 
officer, I understand that no Russian will ever get 
justice if he applies to this office." He says in 
regard to those in Pittsburgh, "These Russians 
decided that it is best to suffer injustice from the 
American Government than to ask or insist on their 
rights. Their previous experience in matters of 
this sort has taught them a good and costly lesson. 
Their complaints are usually unheeded, and call 
forth new repressions." ^* 

From all this the reader can readily understand 
why the Russian is not favorably impressed with 
the laws of America as he knows them. There are 
laws existing for his benefit, but the Russian is 
largely unconscious of that fact. In the case of 
protective measures such as accident insurance, they 
mean little until he has been injured or a friend hurt, 
when the award seems small. In the matter of 
safety appliances and other welfare legislation, the 
Russian is either likely to know nothing about them, 
or else to feel that they are merely a part of his 
inherent right. Like most men he remembers 
annoying laws more than those which merely protect 
common rights. Thus the legislative aspects of 
America in the aggregate probably seem unfavor- 
able and their net result is to make for hostility 
rather than friendliness toward our Government. 

2^ From an unpublished letter of which the author has a copy. 



Relation to Our Government 157 

Agencies of Law and Order: The Police 

There are three agencies of law and order with 
which Russians come Into very close contact: the 
police, the courts, and the agents of the Federal 
Government. The policeman Is an ever present 
fixture of neighborhood street life, always Imminent. 
Although he does not trouble the Russian much In 
ordinary times, he is to be feared. Those who 
have been drunk or loitering on park benches may 
have found to their sorrow that he could arrest 
them. If a housing inspector protests against fire 
escape Incumbrances or unsanitary housing condi- 
tions, it Is often a policeman who makes that protest 
effective. But on no particular occasion does he 
help the Russians with their own problems. His 
other duties are sufficiently numerous without exer- 
cising himself over the needs of the foreigner unless 
there Is violation of the law. All this naturally 
makes the Russian more fearful of the policeman 
than friendly towards him even In ordinary times. 
During a strike period the policemen, special depu- 
ties paid by the companies, and the mounted police, 
all are grouped together In the mind of the foreigner 
as representatives of the Government. 

The writer was a witness of conditions in the 
Lawrence, Massachusetts, Textile Strike in 19 19, 
when hundreds of Russians were affected. With a 
clergyman of New York he was forcibly ordered 
back off the public sidewalk simply because he dared 



158 The Russian Immigrant 

walk by a mill; he saw the police ride upon the side- 
walk following strikers peaceably walking along. 
Although there was a state law permitting peaceful 
picketing, he heard a police officer, who arrested 
Russians on strike, swear in court that he knew of 
no such law. He saw the Russians come into the 
union meetings with heads bandaged, claiming to 
have been arrested and beaten by the police. It 
was the same in the U. S. Steel Strike, the Russians 
recounted scores of instances of alleged mistreat- 
ment. To cite but a few: Two Russians claimed 
that they attempted to go to another town in Penn- 
sylvania during the strike, but as they jumped off 
the train they were arrested by two deputies with 
drawn revolvers, and forced to pay a fine for 
vagrancy besides being banished from the town. 
Another Russian said the police came right into his 
house and arrested him without a warrant, after 
his foreman had begged him to return to work and 
he had refused. The priest in Braddock told the 
writer that in a strike it seemed as if every time 
two Russians were together on the street speaking 
Russian they were arrested. According to the testi- 
mony presented in the two volumes of the Inter- 
Church Steel Strike Report,"* these incidents are 
not exceptional, but even if false or one-sided they 
do serve to show the kind of incidents the Russian 
has heard recounted. 

24 The Inter-Church World Movement, Report on the Steel 
Strike of 1919, op. c'tt., pp. 238-242. The Inter-Church World 



Relation to Our Government 159 

Perhaps harsh treatment is to be expected during 
a strike, but the unfortunate social result is that 
rightly or wrongly it prejudices the mind of the 
Russian against our Government. The Inter-Church 
Commission concluded that as a result of the steel 
strike, "great numbers of workers came to believe 
that local mayors, magistrates, and police officials 
try to break strikes — that the local and national 
government not only was not their government but 
was government in behalf of interests opposing 
theirs." '' 

Courts 

Not only does the Russian dislike our police but 
he is not much more favorably impressed with our 
courts. As far as his experience is concerned, this 
is not strange. Nothing has been written in recent 
times which points out so many injustices in our 
present legal machinery as the bulletin of the Car- 
negie Foundation Justice and the Poor, "a study 
of the present denial of justice to the poor." In 
the introduction, after recognizing the failure of 
our legal machinery to keep pace with legislation, 
it pleads for the equality of all men before the law 
and says: "For no group in the citizenship of the 
country is this more needed than in the case of the 
great mass of citizens of foreign birth, ignorant of 

Movement, Public Opinion and the Steel Strike (N. Y., 1921), p{x 
174-220. 
^° Report on the Steel Strike, op. cit., pp. 238 and 242. 



i6o The Russian Immigrant 

the language, and helpless to secure their rights 
unless met by an administration of the machinery 
of justice that shall be simple, sympathetic, and 
patient. To such the apparent denial of justice 
forms the path to disloyalty and bitterness." ^® The 
author of this study says: "You can work as hard 
as you like to teach the foreign-born resident to love 
American institutions, but if he doesn't get fair 
treatment when he comes in contact with those insti- 
tutions, he will think they do not deserve his 
respect." ^" Yet, as the report shows, there are 
three things at least which prevent the foreigner 
from getting justice : judicial delays, court costs and 
fees, and the expense of counsel. The New York 
State Commission of Immigration found 

serious abuses in the interpreter systems, on which the 
alien's hope of justice depends; it found no instruction in 
our laws which would enable a well-meaning alien to remain 
law-abiding in the maze of our complex ordinances, depart- 
ment regulations, and state laws. It found few aliens able 
to appeal their cases, so their sentences were heavy and their 
situation was hopeless because of their financial inability to 
obtain a full review of their case.^^ 

A Russian priest in Boston asserted that most of the 
Russian interpreters in court were dishonest, usually 
charged the Russian five to ten dollars for their 
services, and were even open to bribery. He felt 
that the Russian did not get justice in our courts. 

26 Smith, R. E., Justice and the Poor (N. Y., 1919), p. xiv. 

27 Davis, Immigration and Americanization, op. cit., p. 725. 

'^^ Reports of U. S. Immigration Commission Igio, vol. 41, p. 265. 



Relation to Our Government i6i 

Whether or not this judgment is too severe, it 
reflects to some extent the viewpoint of his class, 
and that it has some basis in fact is shown by the 
investigation of Mr. Smith for the Carnegie Foun- 
dation, already referred to. 

Federal Agents 

It was natural that during the war the contacts 
of the Russian with agents of the Federal Govern- 
ment should be more numerous. There were liberty 
loans to be raised, there were disloyal elements to 
be dealt with, and there was an army to be con- 
scripted. Our nation was at war and in the endeavor 
to win, it was almost unavoidable that little time 
and energy should have been devoted to observing 
scrupulously the rights of foreign-born residents. 
Since the investigations of this study were made 
immediately following the war, the writer naturally 
met a great many complaints as to war time condi- 
tions and methods. These may or may not have 
been just, but are worth recording briefly because 
they help us to understand the mind of the Russian. 
Some Russians seemed embittered by "the forceful 
methods local officials followed in compelling us to 
buy Liberty Bonds." "If we made any excuse for 
not buying we were called 'traitors,' 'cowards' and 
other worse words." What caused more ill feeling 
was the placing of Russians in the first class when 
they were entitled to the fifth, according to a priest 
in Boston. One in Cleveland said, "The Russian 



1 62 The Russian Immigrant 

workers were told to sign a paper, not knowing what 
it was they signed and afterwards were sent to war." 
In Detroit the testimony was along the same line, 
"Some Russians who had wives and children were 
conscripted as soldiers because they could not speak 
English and no interpreter was provided. They 
were shamelessly treated." One Russian who was 
a conscientious objector said that he spent seventeen 
months in the Fort Leavenworth penitentiary where 
there were eighty-seven other Russians confined for 
the same reason. The Baptist pastor told the 
writer that this man was a very faithful church 
worker. The head of the Russian Consultation 
Bureau in Detroit who had before been in the Con- 
sulate in Chicago stated that during the war if a 
Russian had a wife in the home country, he had no 
way to prove it and so was compelled to serve in the 
army. Mr. Anderson, formerly head of the 
Y.M.C.A. work for Russians in the United States, 
says: 

With the selective draft has come additional misunder- 
standing. Not knowing the language, the Russian has had 
diflficulty in properly filling out his registration card, and 
in many cases he has been called for service where he should 
have been exempted or else put in a deferred classification. 
I have had my attention called to literally thousands of such 
supposedly unjust cases resulting from misunderstandings. 
The other day a Russian discharged soldier, who has a family 
in Russia, told me that he filled out his questionnaire and 
asked for exemption on the ground that he was not an 



Relation to Our Government 163 

American citizen and was married. The police officer to 
whom he gave the questionnaire tore it up and told him he 
must go into the Army whether he wanted to or not; yet 
according to our laws this man should have been exempted. 
In some cases he has gone into the Army as a volunteer with 
a burning desire to serve his country, and in the training 
camp, because of his lack of knowledge of the English 
language, he has been assigned to the labor battalion, there 
to spend his days in drudgery. In the camp he has been 
singled out by the thoughtless American soldier and officer 
and has been insulted, humiliated and held up to ridicule. 
Such treatment has not inspired in him a love for America or 
Americans.^^ 

Whether or not the procedure of a particular 
draft board seemed absolutely fair to the Russian 
depended, no doubt, on local conditions. At any 
rate, in some places the Russians had no criticism 
to make of its action. 

The methods adopted in making the extensive 
raids against Communists and other "reds" were 
almost universally condemned by the Russians and 
seemed to be the cause of the greatest complaint. 
Between November i, 19 19, and April 26, 1920, 
warrants were issued by the Department of Labor 
for the arrest of 6,500 aliens. Approximately 
3,000 of these were apprehended, although many 
others were temporarily arrested and then set free. 



30 



29 An unpublished statement transmitted to the author. 
8° Panunzio, C. M., The Deportation Cases of lglg-lg20 (N. Y. 
1921), p. 16. 



164 The Russian Immigrant 

Most of the aliens Involved were Russians.®^ Mr. 
C. M. Panunzio was given access to all the original 
records at Washington by the Department of Labor. 
He also interviewed the men who were arrested. 
In a careful and scientific study of 200 cases taken 
at random, 148, or 74 per cent were Russians.^^ 
Of those who were actually deported almost all were 
Russians.^^ The arrests were made very largely in 
two raids, one on the night of November 7, 19 19, 
against the Union of Russian Workers, the other 
on January 2, 1920, against the Communist Party of 
America. Those who were attending schools, 
clubs, workingmen's associations, labor unions and 
political parties were taken into custody, even church 
settlements were not always immune. Often all the 
persons on the premises were arrested indiscrimi- 
nately regardless of whether or not their names and 
history were known, and regardless of the lack of 
evidence against them. Property was destroyed, 
and printed matter seized and held without war- 
rant.^* Here again it must be remembered that 
although nearly a year had elapsed since the armis- 
tice, our country was still technically at war. The 
social mind had been sorely disturbed by publicity 

^^ Letter from the Assistant Secretary of Labor, Mr. Post, to 
the author. 

22 Panunzio, op. cit., p. 17. 

33 Department of Labor, Annual Reports for 1920, "Report of 
the Commissioner General of Immigration," pp. 312-315. 

3* Cf. Panunzio, op. cit., pp. 24-34 and Report of the U. S. At- 
torney General 1920, op. cit., pp. 174-177 and Report upon the 
Illegal Practices of the U. S. Department of Justice (Washington, 
1920), pp. 4-5, 11-43. 



Relation to Our Government 165 

concerning alleged German and Bolshevik plots. 
There were radical and dangerous aliens stirring up 
dissension, and in securing their arrest mistakes were 
Inevitable. Apparently, however, there were inex- 
cusable things done and many Russians suffered 
grievous wrongs which rankle in their minds to-day. 
A report entitled Illegal Practices of the United 
States Department of Justice discussing the methods 
used in these raids was Issued In May, 1920, by 
twelve eminent lawyers headed by Dean Pound of 
the Harvard Law School. It says : 

Under the guise of a campaign for the suppression of 
radical activities, the office of the Attorney General, acting 
by its local agents throughout the country, and giving express 
instructions from Washington, has committed continual 
illegal acts. Wholesale arrests both of aliens and of citizens 
have been made without w^arrant or any process of law; 
men and women have been jailed and held incommunicado 
without access of friends or counsel ; homes have been entered 
without search-warrant and property seized and removed ; 
other property has been wantonly destroyed ; workingmen 
and workingwomen suspected of radical views have been 
shamefully abused and maltreated.^^ 

Because he believed the methods used were illegal 
Francis Fisher Kane resigned as United States Dis- 
trict Attorney, while Judge Thompson of Pitts- 
burgh, according to the press, ^® made the following 

^^ Report Upon the Illegal Practices of the United States De- 
partment of Justice, op. cit., p. 3. 

3^ A prominent lawyer has informed the author that the state- 
ment was substantially correct. 



1 66 The Russian Immigrant 

comment on the case of a Russian brought to trial 
before him: "This case makes my blood boil. The 
methods of the Department of Justice have created 
more anarchy than all the radical parties put 
together, and conditions in this district are worse 
than they were in Russia. I did not suppose this 
kind of thing could happen in a country where we 
had a constitution." In his study Panunzio cor- 
roborated the conclusions found in the report signed 
by Dean Pound. He states that not even an admin- 
istrative hearing was given in some cases until weeks 
after the Russians were imprisoned. In the hear- 
ings the immigrant inspector acted as prosecutor, 
judge, and jury at the same time. "In some 
instances the very man who originally had caused 
the arrest of the alien acted as interpreter at the 
hearing." ^^ In 1922 Senator Walsh, a Democrat, a 
member of the Subcommittee on the Judiciary of the 
United States Senate, brought in a report substan- 
tiating these charges against the Department of 
Justice under a Democratic administration. Charles 
E. Hughes, now Secretary of State, has declared 
that the methods used, "savor of the worst prac- 
tices of tyranny." ^* 

The methods used in arresting and deporting can 
be better understood by a few concrete examples. 



37 Panunzio, op. c'tt., p. 94. 

38 Report of Subcommittee of the Judiciary, Charges of Illegal 
Practices of the Department of Justice, 67th Congress, 2nd Ses- 
sion, Senate Committee Print (Washington, 1922), p. 37. 



Relation to Our Government 167 

Theodore Concevich, head of the Church of All 
Nations in New York City, says: 

Joseph Polulech is a young Russian, twenty-five years old. 
He was in America eight years. He was a member of the 
church and I was his pastor. He is a bright young man, 
eager to learn. He was attending a night school run by 
the Communist Party. He was studying English and 
algebra. He was not a Communist, but he was made an 
officer in the school because of his faithfulness and intelli- 
gence. On the night that the school was raided by the 
Lusk Committee, everybody present was arrested, Joseph 
Polulech among them. I and others protested to the Lusk 
Committee and gave our guarantee that young Polulech was 
not a Communist. We received no reply to our protest. 
Joseph Polulech is now among two hundred and forty-nine 
aliens who are locked up in cars being pushed over the 
Finnish frontier. 

Mr. Concevich added: "Russians are now afraid 
to attend public meetings and classes for fear of 
having the police raid their meeting places and 'beat 
them up.' " '' 

Dean Pound and the other lawyers, in the report 
already cited, secured and published a number of 
affidavits, which they evidently considered authentic, 
testifying to the brutal methods of the government 
agents. To cite one instance : Mitchel Layrowsky, 
a teacher of mathematics, swore to the following: 

I am fifty years old. I am married and have two children. 

*8 Personal statement to the author. 



1 68 The Russian Immigrant 

I was principal of the Iglitsky High School for fifteen years 
in Odessa, Russia. I declared my intention to become a 
citizen of the United States. On Nov. 7, 191 9, I conducted 
a class at 137 East 15th St., New York. At about eight 
o'clock in the evening, while I was teaching algebra and Rus- 
sian, an agent of the Department of Justice opened the door 
of the school and walked in with a revolver in his hands and 
ordered everybody in the school to step aside. Then he 
ordered me to step toward him. I wore eyeglasses and the 
agent of the Department of Justice ordered me to take them 
off. Then he struck me on the head and simultaneously 
two others struck me and beat me brutally. After I was 
without strength to stand up, I was thrown downstairs; 
and while I rolled down, other men beat me with pieces of 
wood, which I later found were obtained by breaking the 
banisters. I sustained a fracture of the head, left shoulder, 
and right side. Then I was ordered to wash myself and 
was taken to 13 Park Row, where I was examined and 
released about midnight. ^° 

That this was not an isolated instance can be seen 
by referring to other exhibits from the authorities 
already quoted. For example, in Mr. Panunzio's 
study Necita Zafronia testified, "I have lived long 
enough in Russia, under the Czar. I have seen 
brutality committed there, but I have never seen 
the brutality that was committed on the Russian 
people here." " On the other hand, large numbers 
were arrested without such extreme treatment 

*° Report on the Illegal Practices of the U. S. Department of 
Justice, op. cit., p. 18. 

*i The Deportation Cases of iqiq-iq20, op. cit., p. 77. 



Relation to Our Government 169 

though naturally experiencing great inconvenience, 
loss of wages, and even the loss of positions. 

The way Russians themselves expressed their 
feelings to the author is shown in the following 
statements given by Russians imprisoned on Ellis 
Island. How true all the statements are is open 
to question, but the subsequent release of many indi- 
cates at least that the Government did not always 
substantiate its charges. Steve was twenty- 
five years old and had been in America seven years. 
For the last five he had been working in the Newark 
Tube Metal Works. He was arrested along with 
everyone else in a restaurant. He claimed he was 
not a Communist, although he had been a socialist, 
and thought his detention was due to his having 
contributed money to aid imprisoned Russians. He 
said: 

In Russia I was frequently maltreated and had a difficult 
life as a peasant, but I never did anything against the govern- 
ment. In the United States I am not opposed to your form 
of government and have never favored the use of force. I 
believe all the Russians here are treated unjustly, their 
jobs are taken away, they are arrested ; at the same time they 
are denied passports to return to Russia. The Czar's regime, 
bad as it was, never treated its subjects as the Russians are 
being treated at the present time in America. 

Joe was a member in good standing of 

the International Union of Mine and Smelter 
Workers of America, for the author saw his union 



170 The Russian Immigrant 

card. He had been arrested in his home at mid- 
night. He claimed that he was not even a socialist, 
but was enrolled in an arithmetic class, meeting in 
a Russian Club. During the month that he had 
been held at Ellis Island he did not know what had 
become of his wife and five children, as they had 
no money. He felt that in this matter the American 
Government had treated him and his family most 
unjustly. 

Another Russian had been employed as a fireman 
in the American Brass Company. He was detained 
for over two months only to be released because it 
was found that instead of belonging to a Communist 
society, he was a member of an educational group. 
Out of 200 cases selected at random, Mr. Panunzio 
found that 47 were not members of a. proscribed 
society and that only 56 clearly did so belong. In 
justice to the Government, the tangible results of 
these raids in freeing America from undesirable 
aliens should be noted. At least 810 were ordered 
deported by the Secretary of Labor, and between 
July I, 1919, and June 30, 1920, 314 actually were 
sent to Europe.*^ The author heard radical Rus- 
sians admit that from the standpoint of a "capital- 
istic" government some of the arrests were justified. 
It is probably true that this action also made the 
rank and file of Russians think twice before becom- 
ing members of an organization. They were less 

*2 Department of Labor, Annual Reports for 1920, op. cit., pp. 
312-315. 



Relation to Our Government 171 

likely to join without knowing what its constitution 
and principles were. 

Nevertheless, the methods employed and the pub- 
licity given have caused widespread injustice and 
harsh feeling where it was unnecessary. In 
Duquesne, Pennsylvania, a representative of a gov- 
ernment bureau lecturing on "Abraham Lincoln and 
American Democracy" to Russians was arrested and 
imprisoned as a Bolshevik because he lectured in 
Russian. It took the Government thirty-six hours 
to free its own agent. He says : "After they found 
out who I was and set me free, I asked the mayor 
of the city whether he would allow me to deliver 
my lecture now. He said that he would not. I am 
convinced that no propaganda could be more effec- 
tive in spreading animosity towards the American 
Government." *^ In Boston, a Greek Orthodox 
priest told the author that things reached such a 
pass in his neighborhood that a crowd of Americans 
gathered and threw stones and tin cans at any one 
who entered the church. Once he even had to get 
a policeman to conduct him from his home to the 
religious service. 

It can hardly be denied that the results of the 
raids have been to increase the misunderstanding 
between the Russian and our Government. On this 
point, Mr. Panunzio concludes: "As a consequence 
of all this (the raids, arrests and imprisonments), 
a volume of prejudice and suspicion has been pro- 

*' Taken from a letter from the government representative. 



172 The Russian Immigrant 

duced among immigrant groups which it will require 
perhaps years to allay." " On the whole, the rela- 
tionship between federal agents and the Russian is 
one more of the circumstantial factors which neither 
makes him see the best in America nor stimulates 
him to love our institutions. 

The Effect of the Russian Revolution 

The Russian revolution has also had a decided 
effect on the Russian's attitude toward our Govern- 
ment. Before that event, in spite of some unsatis- 
factory conditions here, most Russians felt that, on 
the whole, their circumstances would be much worse 
in Tsarist Russia. After the revolution the aspect of 
affairs changed; the Russian did not know, but he 
believed that there was a vast improvement in Rus- 
sia. He was a warm believer in the revolution and 
no matter who was controlling the government, at 
least it proclaimed itself a regime of the workers. 
The event gave the Russian here opportunity to give 
vent to his self-assertive or egoistic tendencies which, 
as we have already seen, were largely repressed in 
his home and occupational life. If in America he 
was considered an inferior, at least his own country 
and his own people had been the first to lead the 
world in a workers' commonwealth. "I would be 
a free man and a member of the only real workers' 
government in the world, if I could only reach 

** The Deportation Cases of 1919-1920, op. cit., p. 96. 



Relation to Our Government 173 

Russia," one said to the author. Russian priests, 
the Russian consul, editors of the Russian papers, 
all testified that the majority of the Russians here 
were sympathetic to the Bolsheviks and in favor of 
the Soviets. If in 1922 some were growing a little 
less cordial toward the Bolsheviks, they remained 
just as warm supporters of the Soviets as ever.^^ 

But the United States opposed the Bolsheviks. 
American soldiers were sent to Siberia and Arch- 
angel. The Government until 1920 refused to per- 
mit Russians to return to their homeland. At the 
same time, speeches made by Senators Johnson, 
France, and others assailing our Russian policy were 
widely circulated by the Russian papers. All these 
facts powerfully stimulated the feeling against the 
American Government. It was the opinion of a 
priest in Boston who was Interviewed that fifty per 
cent of the men who were not Bolsheviks at first, 
sympathized with them later because of the action 
of the United States Government. The one in 
Buffalo who was himself an American citizen said 
that almost none of the Russians knew the good 
side of America. "They ask, why does the Govern- 
ment tax us, why arrest us, why not permit us to go 
home?" According to a report sent by a Russian- 
speaking American investigator in California in 
1920, "With few exceptions, the Russians want to go 
home. Recently all the Molokans, of Tacoma, San 

^5 Statement of Omeltchenko, Vilchur, Polonsky and many other 
Russians. 



174 The Russian Immigrant 

Francisco, Los Angeles and along the coast, number- 
ing several thousand, requested the Government to 
deport them. They claimed that they had been 
'cheated' by the Americans in their talk about the 
'freedom of America.' " The head of the Russian 
Consultation Bureau in Detroit and formerly in the 
Russian Consulate in Chicago expressed the reason 
thus : "The Russians do not understand the United 
States and the United States does not understand 
them. Before the war, many took out citizenship 
papers but not now after the Bolshevik revolution." 
The revolution profoundly affected the Russian's 
attitude toward our Government and it no less pro- 
foundly affected the attitude of our Government and 
people toward the Russian. The result was that 
each was becoming increasingly suspicious towards 
the other. Some Russians became dangerous radi- 
cals favoring a world revolution. The Government 
made wholesale arrests, and mutual distrust was the 
inevitable result. It is but another illustration of 
what sociologists have long recognized to be true, 
that unlike individuals reacting toward each other 
in unlike ways make for conflict. 

Conclusion 

The foregoing evidence makes it clear that in an 
unfortunately large number of cases, legislation, 
to the Russian mind, has been discriminatory, con- 
fiscatory, or otherwise unjust. The agencies of law 
and order also appear to him to have been organized 



Relation to Our Government 175 

to serve Americans, not Russians. As a foreign- 
born worker he has been looked down on in Amer- 
ica; in Russia his country has achieved a new form 
of government — of the workers, for the workers, 
and by the workers — so he thinks. The revolution 
in his homeland has strengthened his self-esteem and 
given outlet to his desire for recognition. This 
stimulates his discontent with America where he 
realizes that he is at the bottom of the social scale. 
The raids and wide-spread arrests in 1919 and 1920 
accentuated this feeling and created a sense of injus- 
tice in the mind of the Russian. All these facts 
have undoubtedly made for misunderstanding and 
mutual distrust between the Russian and our Govern- 
ment. From our American standpoint we can dis- 
miss these various factors with easy explanations; 
or we can with deeper insight understand that they 
are due to war psychology, mutual unlikeness, and 
absorption in our own affairs. But to the incoming 
alien, America has beckoned as the Utopia of his 
own individual dreams. What wonder if the dis- 
illusionment has been bitter ! 



CHAPTER VII 

CONCLUSION 

America's Contribution to the Russian 

A CAREFUL consideration of the data already 
presented should have given a reasonably clear pic- 
ture of the relationship of the average Russian 
worker to the rest of our American society. Be- 
cause the facts have shown so much unlikeness and 
misunderstanding between ourselves and the Rus- 
sian aliens it is well to review briefly the real 
contribution which America offers. 

In the first place until very recently she has gen- 
erously thrown wide her doors to all sorts and 
conditions of Russians except the mere handful of 
those defective in mind or body. The illiterate 
masses have not in the past been discriminated 
against, and political and religious refugees have 
found no obstacles to entrance, nor have they been 
deported even in the face of demands from the 
Tsar's Government. 

All these Russians have in the end secured some 
employment which in prosperous times has permitted 
many of them to save. They have had an opportu- 
nity to share in the boundless material resources of 
America in some measure, even though it be only a 

176 



• Conclusion 177 

stake in the daily pay roll. Large sums have, in the 
aggregate, been sent by them to the homeland and 
considerable numbers have returned to Russia with 
accumulations of money which seemed fabulous to 
the simple peasants of their home districts. Others 
have risen to positions of comfort and prosperity on 
the farms or in the cities of the land of their adop- 
tion. To some of them has come a new sense of 
freedom of opportunity for individual initiative; 
some among them have here the chance to read in the 
Russian newspapers material which might have been 
censored or declared illegal under the Tsar. A large 
number of libraries, welfare, and educational institu- 
tions, moreover, are open to them, and to perhaps an 
increasingly large number bring a new aspect of 
America, a faint conception of our traditions and 
our ideals. One Russian who had been illiterate at 
the time of his entry, after eight months' study in a 
civic center, wrote the following: "While in Russia 
... I could not understand how people can govern 
themselves. Now that I have spent nearly eight 
months in this country, I came to the conclusion that 
a democratic government is more advantageous than 
a monarchial." ^ Another clearly recognized that 
this country has liberty of conscience, free press, and 
free speech, "Therefore, the Russian people are 
coming here because they haven't this in their 
country." 

Furthermore, married Russians with children 

1 Davis, Immigration and Americamzation (Boston, 1920), p. 662. 



178 The Russian Immigrant 

come to realize something of what free education 
means — that it is a gift of immeasurable value. The 
second generation read and write English, they know 
something of our history and ideals; they are 
definitely becoming assimilated. As far as their 
social heritage is concerned, it is almost more 
American than Russian. Besides these there are 
some few foreign-born Russians — and it is to be 
hoped their number is increasing — who have them- 
selves found out the real values America has to 
bestow, have acquired citizenship, and have to some 
degree become a part of the body politic. To these 
America offers the opportunity to enter into a 
common social heritage, an amalgam of the best of 
all. 

Isolation and Unlikeness of Foreign-horn Russians 

In spite of all that America gives, we have seen 
that the great majority of Russian immigrants are 
isolated and remain almost totally unlike the Ameri- 
can people. When they first arrive, they come with a 
cultural heritage so totally at variance with that of 
the American that they form a distinct non-resem- 
bling group in our society. In language, occupation, 
education, and mores, they are unlike our average. 
As might be expected of two unlike groups reacting 
on each other, segregation and mutual non-compre- 
hension result. In the economic world the Russian 
has the worst task, out of touch with his employer, in 
contact with a foreman or boss who is often himself 



Conclusion 179 

foreign-born. In his home life we find him occupying 
unsanitary, overcrowded tenements or frame build- 
ings in the foreign districts of our cities detached 
from American life. Even his marketing is con- 
ducted directly with the foreign shopkeeper of his 
own district. 

In the matter of health the foreigner is worse off 
than he was before coming to this country and in 
his recreational activities, besides being deprived of 
the simple folk pastimes to which he was accustomed, 
he has practically no choice other than the lowest 
amusement resorts represented by the saloon, the 
pool room, the dance hall, and the moving picture 
theater. To a considerable extent the various 
religious and educational forces either do not reach 
him at all or, as may be the case with his radical 
clubs and the Russian church, still further set him 
apart. We have seen that the various representa- 
tives and agencies of our Government have failed to 
break down to any extent these barriers of 
unlikeness, and, as one result of the wave of 
intolerance which swept over the social mind during 
and immediately following the war, considerable 
injustice was done the Slav: his mind was still 
further antagonized and made unlike that of 
America. All of these forces make up the sum of 
the social influences which the Russian takes in and 
incorporates as his conception of America. Each 
group with whom he comes in contact, each environ- 
mental factor registers on his personality an 



i8o The Russian Immigrant 

impression. In so far as he is in a receptive, 
imitative attitude some of the influences such as 
a fund of job phrases and "swear words," or cheap 
liquor and questionable amusements, become a part 
of his own personality. On the other hand, his 
self has already been cast in the mold of all the 
hereditary and environmental forces by which he 
was influenced in Russia. In personal relations 
largely isolated from the best of America, he can 
see in large measure only that which is hostile to, 
that which conflicts with the best of the old social 
heritage. There is little which actually bridges the 
Atlantic of social differences separating the Ameri- 
can and the Russian. Consequently, between the 
two there is an almost total lack of consciousness of 
kind. 

At the beginning of this study we declared, "If 
the social point of view which the foreigner brings 
with him, and the social forces which are to act upon 
him are known, the attitude which the majority of 
his nationality will take toward the foreign country 
to which it comes can be predicted." In view of the 
evidence we have presented, we can safely conclude 
that the great majority of the Russians do not 
understand or love America. As a matter of fact, 
they look at her through the colored glasses of their 
experience. It is a sociological truism that we are 
imposing on the average Russian a life of such 
limited happiness, such restrictions on the economic 
and social side of life, such a thwarting of normal 



Conclusion 1 8 1 

instinctive response, that it is impossible for sympa- 
thy, cooperation and friendship to result. Our 
treatment of Russians is sociologically unsanitary. 
The following answers represent the spirit of 
America to a large number of Russian workmen and 
priests. They are surprisingly alike : 

"No heart in American life." 

"Busy and business." 

"Each help self." 

"Rich man's land." 

"Money." 

"Love of self." 

"There is no sympathy here." 

One priest in order to illustrate his conception of 
America went to the door and pointing to the moun- 
tain of coal dust and cinders at the mouth of the 
mine nearby said, "That is the heart of America." 

Some expressed the conviction that America for 
them at least was bad. 

"If money in pocket Americans like you, if not 
don't care and swear at you." 

"America place like heaven for rich, but like hell 
for foreign worker." 

"As a wild animal or bird in a cage, so lives the 
Russian here." 

"America is not free for the workers. They are 
beasts like horses." 

"I think American if he has condition as has 
foreign man, became long ago as Bolshevik." 

"To-day we Russians are friendless. Hatred is 



1 82 The Russian Immigrant 

preached against us everywhere. The word Russian 
is enough to make an enemy, and put one in danger." 

"At home we have a Tsar, here we have a 
superintendent." 

These quotations represent in a vague and inco- 
herent way the attitude of thousands of Russians 
toward our country. On the other hand, the 
American group for its part does not comprehend 
the Russian. The head of the Russian consultation 
bureau in Detroit expressed the present relationship 
between the two groups when he said, "The Russians 
do not understand the United States, and the United 
States does not understand the Russians." 

The workers sense this misunderstanding, as is 
evidenced by the following: "Even in opinion of 
middle class in America, the Russian workmen are 
the animal." "Experience has taught us that Ameri- 
cans should be regarded as exploiters, they look on 
us as 'Polacks.' " The Russian newspapers clearly 
reveal the same attitude, as in the following: 

Russki Golos, April 20, 1920 

(A Translation) 

DO YOU LIKE AMERICA? 

"If you don't — get out," says the landlord to his tenant. 
Masters of American land — they are the landlords, too. 
What they are used to saying to their tenants, they say to 
the immigrant masses. By their order, articles are written 
in newspapers which are read all over the country. They 



Conclusion 183 

dictate the words that are shown in brilliant letters on the 
screen in moving pictures. Every day these words stand 
before the people's eyes, are whispered in their ears. They 
poison the soul of the American people with spite and stupid 
arrogance. These offensive words are daily thrown into 
the newcomer-immigrant's face. "If you don't like it — 
get out," says the landlord to his tenant. "If you don't 
like this country — get out," shout the capitalistic newspapers 
and moving pictures to the immigrant laborer. 

"Get out of here," is told to the immigrant. These words 
are not only stupid, they are false. If millions of workmen 
who came here from Europe should leave the U. S., Amer- 
ica's strength and wealth would vanish. In the big theaters 
among dancing and other entertainments you see these same 
words on the screen : — "If you don't like this country — 
get out." Many would like to get out and will do it as soon 
as possible. But is it true that we do not like this country? 
We like this country as any country. Here also the sun 
shines, the woods murmur and the rivers flow. This coun- 
try is a good field for human labor. As everywhere else, 
here are people humiliated by the strong ones. As every- 
where else the money bag is ruling. 

It is not that we do not like America. We do not like 
the great amount of violence and falsehood that is in Amer- 
ica. We do not like it that in America are stupid people. 
They are among those who throw in the face of the Russian 
and European workman, who have helped to create the 
wealth of America the oliEensive words, "Get out of here." 

Russkoye SlovOj Dec. 24, 1920 

(A Translation) 

America is not at all interested in the soul and spiritual 
life of the Russian immigrant, only in his muscles. He 



184 The Russian Immigrant 

came to this country a stranger and often leaves it again 
without any American knowing him at all. It is therefore 
very unjust to accuse him of disloyalty, ingratitude and 
revolt. 

Need of Increasing the Likeness Between the 
Russian and American Mind 

In view of all this, the need of creating a greater 
likeness between the Russian and the American mind 
seems entirely obvious. If we are ever to get a 
group consciousness, a patriotic devotion to Ameri- 
can Ideals by all, it must be accomplished by breaking 
down the barriers now existing. We unhesitatingly 
spent large sums in arresting thousands of Russians 
suspected of radicalism and Bolshevism In 19 19 and 
1920. This was merely a striking proof that 
America had herself failed to provide the necessary 
social mechanism to create mutual understanding. 
In this connection It Is Important to note that those 
Russians who were arrested as dangerous anarchists 
by our Government at that time were those who had 
had almost no contacts with Americans at all. With 
the permission of the Assistant Secretary of Labor, 
the writer Interviewed arrested Russians In Detroit, 
Pittsburgh, Hartford, and Ellis Island. Each Rus- 
sian was asked whether, during his stay In America, 
he had ever met any American who had helped him. 
It was suggested that perhaps there had been some 
teacher, some boss, some boarding-house keeper or 
worker who had been friendly to him. Out of nearly 



Conclusion 185 

150 arrested Russians there were only five who had 
ever received any such aid. Of these American 
friends, two had been workmen, two company 
doctors, and one a teacher. On the other hand, 
every one of the groups had met many who had 
cursed them, foremen who called them "Russian 
swine," bosses who were continually swearing at 
them. America, according to their stories, had 
been for the most part one constant struggle against 
adverse industrial conditions and exploitation. The 
former head of the Russian work of the Y.M.C.A. 
in America after speaking in the various Russian 
colonies says: "At practically every place I have 
visited, I have been hailed as one of the first Ameri- 
cans to come to him (the Russian) extending a 
friendly hand. Sometimes he has shed tears, while 
occasionally he has cursed America, and included 
me along with her." The result of this lack of 
intercourse is that thousands of Russians who have 
become skilled in our industrial processes return to 
Europe just at the time when, having learned their 
trades, they are at the point of maximum efficiency. 
If we could bring about a greater likemindedness 
between the Russian and the American it would 
increase cooperation in every factory, mine, and 
community where the Slav is employed. It also goes 
without saying that if the foreign-born Russian could 
be made to understand the best of America, it would 
enormously aid in fitting the second generation to 
meet the opportunities and duties of citizenship. 



1 86 The Russian Immigrant 

Theodore Roosevelt clearly realized this when he 
said in an address on Americanism in 1915,^ "We 
cannot afford to continue to use hundreds of thou- 
sands of immigrants merely as industrial assets while 
they remain social outcasts and menaces." 

We owe these foreigners a moral obligation. As 
Dr. Giddings says,^ "Society is morally responsible 
for the costs of its existence." The Slavic workers 
are essential parts of our economic mechanism. A 
prominent manufacturer in Lawrence, Massachu- 
setts, admitted to the writer that the textile mills 
would never be able to keep running were It not 
for the foreign labor. "Americans would refuse 
to do the dirty work," was his comment. The U. S. 
Immigration Commission In 1909 * found that four 
fifths of the operatives of thirty-eight great Indus- 
tries were either foreign-born or the sons of 
foreigners. The proportion would probably be still 
higher in 1922, for it has been since 1909 that the 
heaviest immigration has come, displacing still 
further American unskilled labor. But It is precisely 
In the essential industries such as iron and steel, coal 
mining, railway construction, meat packing, and 
sugar refining that we find the Russian worker. 
Ex-President Wilson has said : 

The welfare, the happiness, the energy and spirit of the 

2 Address given before the Knights of Columbus, Carnegie Hall, 
New York, October 13, 1915, reprinted in Davis, op, cit.j p. 645. 

3 Giddings, Democracy and Empire, op. cit., p. 86. 
^Abstracts of Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. i, 

op. cit., passim. 



Conclusion 187 

men and women who do the daily work in our mines and 
factories, on our railroads, in our offices and ports of trade, 
on our farms, and on the sea, is the underlying necessity of 
our prosperity. There can be nothing wholesome unless 
their life is wholesome; there can be no contentment unless 
they are contented. Their physical welfare affects the 
soundness of the whole nation.^ 

But it is futile to pretend we have made our 
foreign workers happy and contented, least of all 
the Russians. Rabbi Wise of the Free Synagogue 
in New York City says: "I would have America 
either shut foreigners out or take them in, not leave 
them dangling in spirit at our doors, physically 
admitted to, but spiritually excluded from, the life 
of the Republic." « 

Moreover, can we really be a democracy if large 
elements of the population are thus detached? The 
publication, Americanization, of the United States 
Department of Education, asks the following search- 
ing questions : 

What should be said of a world-leading democracy 
wherein ten per cent of the adult population cannot read 
the laws which they are presumed to know? 

What should be said of a democracy which sends an army 
to preach democracy wherein there was drafted out of the 
first 2,000,000 men a total of 200,000 men who could not 
read their orders or understand them when delivered ? 

What should be said of a democracy which expends in 
a year twice as much for chewing gum as for school books, 

^Wilson, The Neiv Freedom (N. Y., 1918), p. 290. 

^ From an unpublished address sent in manuscript to the author. 



1 88 The Russian Immigrant 

more for automobiles than for all primary and secondary 
education, and in which the average teacher's salary is less 
than that of the average day laborer? 

What should be said of a democracy which permits men 
and women to work in masses where they seldom or never 
hear a word of English spoken ? ^ 

Possible Methods of Securing Like-mindedness 

The chief purpose and findings of this study have 
now been presented, the actual situation and rela- 
tionship of the Russians in our social structure has 
been at least partially diagnosed. Their treatment 
and experience seem to shut them out from and 
keep them unlike our normal American group. 
It is not intended to outline the concrete methods 
which must be followed to break down the isola- 
tion which Is the key to the present situation. 
This would Involve a further careful and much 
more exhaustive study. Certain things, however, 
can be urged. In the first place, the barriers 
to communication between the two peoples must 
be overthrown. Inter-stimulation, communication 
and response must in some way be established 
between them. One of the chief obstacles to this 
is the language barrier. To know where the aliens 
are is the first step. The State Department of 
Americanization in New York had copied from the 
U. S. Census record the names and addresses of all 
people 21 to 50 years of age who were listed as not 

''Americanization, Jan. i, 1919, p. 3. 



Conclusion 189 

able to read or write any language or not able to 
speak English: 

The 381,000 names which were copied from the census 
schedules were distributed among the 320 superintendents 
of schools of New York State. In many cities and villages, 
local school boards appointed teachers to visit these people 
at their homes to invite them to attend classes for the study 
of English and citizenship. We estimate that about 100,000 
homes were visited during the past school year. In these 
visits to the homes, teachers probably carried the message 
of the public school to about 300,000 foreign-born, as they 
met five or six persons on every such visit.^ 

Such a procedure must, of course, be followed by 
some definite contact with those whose names are 
secured, as seems to have been done to some extent 
in this case. To eradicate the differences of lan- 
guage, two things are essential. Adequate schools 
at the right hours and in the right localities for the 
foreigners should be provided by the community or 
the state. Second, the proper relationship with the 
immigrants must be sustained in order to Induce 
them to attend such classes. This might be accom- 
plished by having foreign-speaking workers attached 
to the schools, who would maintain friendly contacts 
with the foreigners and let them know what the 
schools offered and where they were. 

Provided it were possible to enlist the cooperation 
of the employer, this would be the quickest and 

^Letter of the Supervisor of Immigrant Education for the State 
of New York to the author. 



190 The Russian Immigrant 

easiest way to help the Russian learn English. As 
W. M. Roberts, Assistant Superintendent of Schools 
in Chicago, said at the National Americanization 
Conference in 1919:^ "If the employers represent- 
ing the dominant industries in any industrial city 
remain indifferent as to whether or not the foreign- 
born men in their employ know the English language, 
it requires extraordinary effort on the part of other 
agencies of the community to get them started in 
learning English. The experiences growing out of 
the war have shown that the foreign-born men would 
like to be called Americans; that they would prefer 
to speak English in the shop and on the street, and 
that they have not learned, largely because it was 
not required of them in the factory, was not neces- 
sary at home, and they could get all the news they 
wanted out of the foreign language newspapers." 

If a law could be enacted which prohibited 
manufacturers from employing any alien who did 
not read and write English unless the manufacturer 
established in his plant a class for such aliens under 
the direction of the local board of education, it 
might prove effective. The law should also provide 
that the foreigners were to attend the class during 
their working hours on company time. Such a law 
would enormously stimulate the desire of the 
foreigner to learn English, and it would force the 
employer, utilizing the cheapest foreign labor, to 
install English classes in English. 

3 Davis, Immigration and Americanization, op. cit., p. 714. 



, r~^^,, , A. 



Conclusion 191 

The D. E. Sicher Company of New York has 
adopted such a plan and when asked whether classes 
to teach employees were worth while, one of its 
officers said: "On the basis of expense also, I could 
prove to you that it is worth while. . . . Four years 
ago the company organized classes in the plant for 
instruction in English, the New York City Board of 
Education providing the teacher. Fifty-five girls 
were enrolled in three groups, each one receiving 
instruction for three-quarters of an hour each morn- 
ing, wages being paid during that time." The 
results showed a steady increase in hourly wages 
and a decrease in the number of supervisors needed.^" 

The Wisconsin Bridge and Iron Company of 
Milwaukee has for several years paid one hour's 
wages to every non-English-speaking employee 
studying English in the school room.^^ In a letter of 
January 6, 1922, to the author, the vice-president of 
this concern says that they have been very much 
pleased with the remarkable progress made by those 
who are studying and that they believe the policy 
has resulted in a better feeling between the foreign 
employees and the company. 

Massachusetts has taken the lead in the coopera- 
tion between the state department of education and 
the manufacturers and the local communities. 
The state provides half the funds and the local 
communities the other half for classes in industry 

^'^Americanization, June i, 1919, p. 10 (also cf. MacCarthy, 
IV here Garments and Americans Are Made (N. Y., 1917), pp. 1-55. 
11 Ihid., Feb. i, 1919, p. 10. 



192 The Russian Immigrant 

under a local director of immigrant education and 
a trained group of teachers equipped with text books. 
The industries organize a committee or plant direc- 
tor, recruit classes, provide the class-room facilities 
and provide incentives. In December, 192 1, thirty- 
eight cities and fifty-four towns in Massachusetts 
took advantage of the state law and organized such 
classes.^^ 

Next to the language barrier comes that of 
misunderstanding and ignorance, which is closely 
linked up with that of exploitation. Here also there 
is no single easy method by which to demolish the 
obstruction. One means toward this end would be 
the establishment by the Federal Government of 
information bureaus for aliens in the more important 
foreign centers. The bureaus should be managed by 
naturalized citizens under the direction of an Ameri- 
can; at least one foreign-speaking worker for each 
major nationality in the city. They would be 
prepared among other things to tell the inquirer 
where to find good lawyers, doctors, banks, night 
schools, and welfare agencies, besides tracing out 
and exposing exploitation and fraud. Such a bureau 
could also assist in giving American news items to 
the foreign-language press. As a matter of fact, 
the Foreign Language Governmental Information 
Service Bureau did exactly this in a small way during 
the war and at the present time the work is being 

^2 Letter from the Assistant State Supervisor of Americanization 
to the writer. 



Conclusion 193 

continued by the American Red Cross. The diffi- 
culty is that they are now able to maintain only one 
office in New York, whereas one should be found 
in every large center of the foreign-born. In spite 
of this fact the bureau gives out news to 795 foreign- 
language publications, covering eighteen foreign 
language groups, who print an average of three- 
quarters of a million words per month of this 
material.^^ It has sent out 95,000 pamphlets in 
Russian, Ukranian, Hungarian and Polish and 
adjusts more than 2000 personal cases a month. "It 
furnishes 30,000 words of foreign-language editorial 
matter to 100 American papers monthly and sends 
5000 words of general news concerning the alien to 
400 papers." ^* 

The creation of such an information bureau has 
for a long time been strongly urged on the Govern- 
ment by competent authorities. At the time when 
the United States Immigration Commission was 
making a study of the entire immigration problem 
a letter was sent out to the various welfare 
organizations working among immigrants asking, 
"What, in your opinion, can the National Govern- 
ment do to promote assimilation or Americanization 
of immigrants?" Nearly all of those who replied 
recommended some form of informational help to 
the immigrant, and eight specifically mentioned some 

13 Bierstadt, E. H., "The Work of the Foreign Language Infor- 
mation Service," T/ie Legal Aid Rev'teiv, vol. 19, no. 4 (Oct., 1921), 
p. 3. 

" Ibid,, p. 6. 



194 The Russian Immigrant 

form of an information bureau." More recently 
the Secretary of the California Immigration Com- 
mission has urged the establishment of a Federal 
agency to cooperate with the states. "Each state 
must establish a central commission with the respon- 
sibility for developing and executing a state 
program of Americanization, properly coordinated 
with the national program. Second, the National 
Government must establish a central agency charged 
with the full power of a broad national Americani- 
zation program carried on in cooperation with the 
state." ^^ In the report of the United States 
Commissioner of Education for 19 19 it is recom- 
mended that an "immediate national organization of 
all forces," public and private, under the leadership 
of the Federal Government, should be created. 
"The problem is too delicate to be left to the 
uncertain activities of undirected amateurs." ^^ 
Enough concrete plans have been proposed. The 
need is for action. There is a real danger that 
since the war is over, all such plans will be aban- 
doned. As ex-President Roosevelt said in one of 
his last public statements, "There must be no sagging 
back in the fight for Americanism merely because 
the war is over." ^* 

If the Government should establish some form of 



^^ Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 41, op. cit., passim. 
'^^Americanization (Conference Supplement), June i, 1919, p. 11. 
1'^ U. S. Bureau of Education, Report of the Commissioner of 
Education (1919), p. 46. 
^^Americanization, Feb. i, 1909, p. 7. 



Conclusion 195 

information bureau on an adequate scale, it would 
to a large extent break down misunderstanding, 
exploitation, and unlikeness. Such agencies would 
also serve to help in educating Americans about 
Russians. Nearly all the foreign groups would be 
glad to see such a service carried on and the Russians 
would certainly be no exception. The Russkoye- 
Slovo for Nov. 17, 1919, made the following 
comment in this connection: 

A number of organizations are helping the immigrant 
understand the political, social and industrial life in this 
country. Nothing, however, seems to be done to teach 
Americans to know the immigrant, his aims and desires. 
The average American knows little about the foreign-born. 
He considers every Italian a member of the "Black Hand" 
Society. He thinks that every Russian is a Bolshevik, every 
German an admirer of the Kaiser. Until the war, Amer- 
icans were not interested in European life and people. For 
example, a popular magazine published a picture repre- 
senting a Jew from Warsaw and a Caucasian mountaineer, 
entitling it: "Russian Types from Russia in General." An 
official organization asked the governor how many Russians 
there were in his state. The official replied, "In the city 
of N on X Street, there are many Russians of Jewish descent. 
We have no information about other Russians." It is true 
that during the first period of immigration from Russia, 
Jews and Poles predominated, therefore, Americans conclude 
that the population of Russia chiefly consists of them. Be- 
fore Americans can attempt to Americanize the immigrant, 
they must study his life and culture. 

That this feeling of a Russian editor has some 



196 The Russian Immigrant 

foundation in fact, the present study has demon- 
strated. In order to assimilate the foreigner we 
must break down prejudice on both sides, Ameri- 
can as well as Russian. Says President W. G. 
Harding:" 

The person of foreign birth is more a victim in this coun- 
try than a conspirator, because agitators have been preaching 
the gospel of revolution to him incessantly, whereas no one 
so far seems to have preached to him the blessings of an 
orderly government and the rewards of American oppor- 
tunity. America, that has invited and enlisted foreign man- 
power for its industries, has even neglected to teach the 
immigrant the American language. It is far more important 
to practice than to preach 'Americanism." 

The few remedies here proposed are merely 
suggestions. This study has attempted to describe 
conditions, not to prescribe cures. It has demon- 
strated the fact that the foreign-born Russians at 
present are isolated and out of touch with the 
average American life. In some way the barriers 
to assimilation must be broken down. A scientific 
solution of the problem now will save America con- 
tinual social loss, and possible crisis in the future. 

^^ Foreign Born, March, 1920, p. 19. 



APPENDIX 

THE SOCIAL IMPRESS OF AN AUTOCRACY ^ 

A Peasant Immigration 

The Russians who have come streaming to our 
shores in such great numbers have not carried with 
them large accumulations of material wealth, nor 
have they been burdened with the usual tourists' 
conglomeration of boxes and bags. Their baggage 
has been of a different sort. It consisted in the 
social heritage of an autocracy. Unalterably 
opposed to the Tsar's tyranny as was the United 
States Government, yet she could not force these 
newcomers to check this peculiarly personal baggage, 
the social impress of an autocracy, at the door. It 
was brought in and carried far and wide wherever 
the Russian went. 

From the investigation conducted by the Immi- 
gration Commission we know that 92 per cent 
of the Russians migrating to the United States 
belonged to the peasant laboring class. Over ninety- 

1 This chapter is inserted in the Appendix because it deals with 
conditions in Russia rather than America. It may help toward an 
appreciation of the Russian's state of mind as he confronts an en- 
tirely new situation. Considerable of the material appeared in a 
different form in the Political Science Quarterly, June, 1922. For 
further information on the Russian background consult the United 
States Immigration Reports, vol. 4, pp. 239-348. 

197 



198 The Russian Immigrant 

five out of every hundred were over sixteen years 
of age. Their minds had been definitely molded by 
the social institutions of Russia, and their view of 
America, as we have seen, has been warped by that 
process. 

Land Holdings 

In order to understand the outlook which they 
bring with them, we shall consider briefly their 
condition in Russia. From the liberation of the 
serfs in the sixties until the pre-war period, the 
amount of land held by the individual peasant had 
fallen nearly one-half. A large number of peasants 
had lost all their land by either renting it for a long 
period or by going to work for wages. In 1900 
the average amount held had fallen to 2.6 dessy- 
tines, or about seven acres. Since that time, owing 
to the rapid increase of population, there has been a 
still greater shortage. Land hunger became espec- 
ially acute in the provinces of Kiev, Podalsk, Poltava, 
Kursk and Tulsk. This probably contributed to the 
emigration from these districts. 

Agricultural Backwardness 

Besides an unequal distribution of the land, Russia 
has been afflicted with agricultural backwardness. 
Wooden plows and harrows were in common use; 
ropes or fiber thongs were the chief material for the 
harness of carts or plows. Where the mir existed, 
the land was owned in common by the entire village. 
Each peasant received a narrow strip between two 



The Social Impress of an Autocracy 199 

and ten yards wide, but even where there was no 
mir, the strip system of ownership prevailed. This 
enormously increased the difficulties of production, 
but individual industry and initiative were dulled 
still further by the fact that, under the mir, in order 
to insure fairness, the holdings were reapportioned 
every few years. In addition, shiftless, slow and 
easy-going habits met with little rebuke under the 
communal system. Regardless of how little or how 
much improvement a peasant had made on his land, 
he was liable to lose it at the next redistribution. 
Even where there was private ownership, the waste- 
ful three-field system, whereby one-third of the land 
lay idle each year, still prevailed. 

Conditions in Industry 

It is no wonder that increasing numbers left the 
soil to enter industry. By 1908 there were over a 
million and a half factory workers in Russia. But 
here, too, conditions were very hard. In 1900 the 
average pay of an adult male worker was only about 
twenty roubles a month. This necessitated an 
extremely low standard of living. For example, two 
families would often share one room. The hours 
of work were long, seldom averaging less than 
twelve a day, and the men were not permitted to 
organize. It is true, the same speed and machine- 
like efficiency that one finds in an American factory 
were absent; the worker was able to go more slowly 
and get more rest, but his lot was not an enviable 



200 The Russian Immigrant 

one. Although organization was not permitted, 
secret unions with their accompaniment of radical 
agitators and socialistic and anarchistic literature 
abounded. The workers were taught to believe that 
in reality they should own and control the factories 
and receive "all the product of their toil." 

The Peasants' Attitude toward the Land 

Conditions in industry, however, were not suffi- 
ciently attractive to tempt the great mass of the 
peasants, and besides, they loved the land and "the 
work in the fields as they loved no other kind of 
work." They speak of the land in such endearing 
terms as "mother-earth," "drink-giver" and "food- 
giver." But the peasant thought that he was 
entitled to all he produced. Perhaps he was not 
getting it, but he believed that he would when once 
the "greedy landlords" were dispossessed. In the 
peasant courts, where law is administered on the 
basis of custom and folk-ways, labor is recognized 
as "having rights superior to property and even 
kinship." Sons-in-law, stepsons and adopted sons 
have all the inheritance rights of children born in 
the home, and the first-born son is debarred if he 
does not take part in the common work. 

The Cooperative Movement 

The close village life, the economic needs of the 
people and a lack of the means of transportation, as 



The Social Impress of an Autocracy 201 

well as a severe climate have all tended to foster 
the cooperative movement in Russia. In spite of 
much governmental interference, there were in 1905 
about 5,800 local societies in Russia. By 19 12 these 
had increased to 18,083 locals, with a membership 
of 5,760,000 "householders," and at the beginning 
of 19 19 the number of societies had increased to 
80,000, with 20,000,000 householders. 

The Russian peasants crave society and all live 
together in a village. The little wooden huts with 
thatched roofs usually contain but one room and a 
shed. The one room combines kitchen, dining, living 
and bedrooms, besides being used for a calf-pen, 
pig-sty, or horse-stall in cold weather. In summer, 
when the children sleep outside, the doors and 
windows are open, and the entire family spends the 
day in the fields, perhaps the one room is adequate. 
In winter, when all sleep in the one room and the 
windows and doors are tightly closed, conditions 
are not so satisfactory, but even then the huge oven 
on which part of the family sleeps must cause some 
change of air in the loosely built hut. The conges- 
tion Is bad, but it is usually limited to one household 
— although this may include daughters-in-law. 

Health 

The diet of the peasant is largely vegetarian, since 
meat is expensive. His bill of fare is made up 
chiefly of rye bread, potatoes, mlllc products, and 



202 The Russian Immigrant 

the various vegetables in season, fresh from his 
own fields. Nevertheless, famines recur periodically 
and then thousands starve, as they did in 1891 and 
in 1899. Disease is prevalent owing to the lack 
of sanitation and doctors. In America we have one 
physician to every 800 persons, but in European 
Russia, in 19 12, there was only one for every 13,000 
in the cities and towns, and one for every 21,900 in 
the country. 



The Family 

The Russian peasant usually has a large family, 
as is evidenced by the rapid increase of the popula- 
tion as a whole, in spite of the high death rate. A 
woman works at least as hard, if not harder, than 
her husband. She usually milks the cow, feeds the 
poultry and live stock, cooks, washes, cares for the 
children, and in summer toils in the fields with the 
men. The children early begin to work. 

In spite of the many hardships of life in Russia 
there are compensations. A peasant member of the 
Duma once told of the terrible condition of his own 
people, "their needs, their wants, their misery, their 
ignorance. All the same, we have great fun in our 
village; you ought to come and stay there. There 
is no such life in the world." Every village has its 
sunshine and laughter intermingled with its sorrows. 



The Social Impress of an Autocracy 203 



Recreational Life 

Perhaps one reason for this is that the Russians 
have always been a singing people. They sing while 
they work and they sing while they play. The 
balalaika, a sort of triangular guitar, and the accor- 
dion are very popular. On Sundays and holidays 
the young men and girls go for festival walks to the 
accompaniment of this music. The main enjoyment 
seems to be playful conversation, music, and the 
out-of-doors. The Russian falls heir to a wealth of 
folk songs. There are historical epics, and lyrics 
of love, warfare, and death. There are nature 
songs welcoming back the sun after the winter, 
besides special ones for every festival. 

On their gala days the Russians enjoy nothing 
better than singing and dancing. The girls often 
wear brilliantly colored costumes much adorned with 
embroidery and beading; these add to the pictur- 
esqueness of the dancing, which is both individual 
and social. The scene is one of rollicking fun and 
wholesome sociality. The Russian has a sense for 
dramatic art, and frequently the villagers will stage 
humorous dialogues. Festival days are so frequent 
and the Sabbath is so well observed that the peasants 
do have adequate recreation. Indeed, the Russian 
is probably far more socialized in this respect than 
the average American, whose amusements too often 
must center around the thrill of the unusual under 



204 The Russian Immigrant 

circumstances which are not conducive to real 
re-creation. 

Religion 

The Greek Orthodox faith, the prevailing religion, 
by using elaborate ceremonial forms among an 
ignorant peasantry, has ministered to superstition, 
and helped to maintain the authority of the Tsar, 
who was the temporal head of the Church. Beautiful 
edifices have been built, with magnificent interiors, 
inspiring music, burning candles, and priests in 
golden robes, but almost nothing has been done in 
the way of social service. For the most part, the 
priests have not even dared to preach to the people, 
but have often served as secret agents for the Tsar. 
In the organization of reactionary parties, the 
church authorities have always played a part. It is 
natural that many Russians could not remain in this 
faith. Although theoretically there was religious 
freedom in Russia, practically there was not. Those 
who split from the Orthodox Church, whether Old 
Believers, Dukhobors, Molokans, Stundists or the 
followers of Sutaiev, were persecuted. Some of 
them were even driven from their villages and 
banished to Siberia. Tragic indeed are the stories 
of not a few of those who emigrated to America. 

Education 

In matters of education, the peasant has been 
worse off than in religion. In 19 12, out of a popula- 



The Social Impress of an Autocracy 205 

tion of one hundred and eighty millions, only seven 
were in school. Moreover, according to the report 
of the investigating committee of the third Duma, 
the educational influence which the schools exerted 
was insignificant. Many children, soon after leaving, 
were found to be practically illiterate — the terms 
were for only four or five months in the winter, 
anyway. It is no wonder that at least fifty per cent 
could not even sign their own names, and nearer 
seventy per cent could not read. 

Even for the literate, only censored material was 
available. Not one word could be printed without 
being approved by the Tsar's appointee. Since the 
independent press followed the practice of leaving 
blank, the parts deleted by the Government, often 
whole front page columns would be left with only 
here and there a sentence. This naturally made the 
thinking people deeply suspicious of the papers, the 
news, and the Government. 

Relation to the Government 

Nearly always where the peasant came in contact 
with the Government, the relationship was a harsh 
and disagreeable one. The Ispravnik, or police 
commissioner, had general supervision over each 
district. His will was law. He could fine or 
imprison any one he chose. Under him was the 
Uriadnik, or constable, who also had absolute power, 
subject to the disapproval of the Ispravnik. To 



2o6 The Russian Immigrant 

make inspection he could enter any house at any 
time of day or night without a warrant. He could 
tear down an entire building if he claimed it did not 
meet the regulations. Besides these officials there 
was the Zemsky Nachalnik, who had administration 
over all the rural institutions and was higher than 
the Uriadnik. He could depose the elective officials 
of the peasant commune or mir, and order any 
peasant flogged. He belonged to the nobility and 
naturally would not betray their interests. There 
was only one way to placate an angry ofl'icial in 
most of the villages and that was through bribery. 
Moreover, if an official wanted work done on his 
estate, the peasants would, of course, never dare to 
charge for it. They feared and hated the ordinary 
government official and tried to curry his favor on 
all occasions. 

There was another way in which the peasant came 
into contact with the Government, and that was 
through the sale of vodka. The Government had a 
monopoly of its sale, and nearly one-third of the 
total state revenue was derived in this way. It was 
illegal to sell this liquor with an alcohol content of 
less than 40 per cent, and it might contain nearer 
60 per cent. This did much to stultify any initiative 
which the peasant might have had, and to keep him 
in economic bondage. 

Taxes were extremely heavy. In some cases they 
were more than the total income from the land. 
Yet since the village commune was responsible collec- 



The Social Impress of an /Autocracy 207 

tlvely for the payment of the tax, and the peasant 
could not by law leave his village without consent, 
he was hopelessly under bondage. Besides, there 
were officials who could flog and imprison the 
delinquent. Even after the redemption payments 
on land were canceled in 1905, the indirect taxes on 
tea, sugar, cotton, and other articles used by the 
peasants were increased until 60 per cent of the total 
national revenue was raised in this way. 

Worst of all, the male peasant was compelled to 
serve five years in the army and, in case of hostilities, 
could be conscripted and plunged into the maelstrom 
of war over issues about which he knew little and 
cared less. It was thus, in the World War, that 
Russia mobilized sixteen million men. They were 
snatched from their homes, perhaps not to return 
even on furlough during three long years of war. 
They served at a wage of fifty kopeks (twenty-five 
cents) a month. They ate out of a common dish 
pan, seven soldiers dipping their wooden spoons into 
the same bowl for their noonday meal. There was 
little or no welfare work done for them — they died 
like flies. At home their wives struggled alone with 
the land, accepting without a murmur whatever came 
of sickness and death. Frequently for years they 
were entirely without word from their husbands, 
who might be alive or dead for all they knew. Yet 
in this war they were treated better than in any of 
the former wars by which Russia has been afflicted. 



2o8 The Russian Immigrant 

Summary of Environmental Conditions 

We have examined briefly the European back- 
ground of the Russian; let us sum up the main 
environmental conditions which might affect his 
conduct in America. 

Centuries of agricultural labor had intensified his 
love for the land. In spite of hard and bitter 
conditions, he remained on the soil, but felt that he 
was being cheated out of the full product of his 
labor. 

Conditions in industry were hard, but not as 
hurried and machine-like as in America. Often the 
worker became inoculated with socialistic and an- 
archistic ideas. 

The communal land ownership, the close village 
life, and the continued restriction of individual 
initiative forced him more and more into coopera- 
tive effort. 

The peasant lived in congested, unsanitary quar- 
ters, but these conditions were mitigated by his 
outdoor life. 

He was used to a vegetarian diet of fresh farm 
products. 

He had little experience with doctors and accepted 
those available without question. 

The women worked equally hard with the men. 

Recreation was wholesome and satisfied the 
impulse to sociality. 

The church satisfied the mystical craving of the 



The Social Impress of an Autocracy 209 

masses, but was doing little social service work and 
was definitely linked up with the autocracy. 

Schools were few and the masses were illiterate. 

The government was such that the peasants lived 
in continual fear of the officials and, for the most 
part, suffered under and disliked the military service. 

Such were the social conditions in the Tsar's 
regime which, during all his life, bound the mind 
of the Russian. He was the victim of religious 
intolerance, social inequality, economic discrimina- 
tion, political despotism, and compulsory ignorance. 
While all these conditions made life uncomfortable, 
poverty was the most potent force in stimulating 
emigration. 

Obstacles to Emigration 

But America could claim only the more alert and 
forceful. For the masses, the difficulties that stood 
in the way were too great. For years the Govern- 
ment had feared greatly that Russians emigrating to 
foreign countries might get republican ideas. Emi- 
gration was a thing unknown to the Russian law and 
the adoption of foreign citizenship was illegal. The 
longest period for which a passport could be granted 
was five years, and this demanded special permission 
from the administrative department. 

Later, however, in the reign of the last Tsar, the 
Government evidently decided that a sojourn in 
America would not necessarily result in republican 
ideas, for immigrants would see only the dark side. 



210 The Russian Immigrant 

In 1905 the chairman of the Council of the Tsar's 
Ministers, S. Witte, even said in a speech to the 
railroad workers, "Look on the republic of America, 
and you, gentlemen, will find that political liberty 
which prevails there always has served and will 
serve the interests of the rich, but not the prole- 



tariat." 



Every emigrant, nevertheless, had to secure a 
special passport from the governor of the province. 
This meant filing an application which cost money. 
Furthermore, if the appHcant was within three years 
of military age, it would be doubtful if his request 
would be granted. To leave the country illegally 
was possible, but this, again, meant the payment of 
a bribe to those who would make the arrangements. 
Even if able to leave, the trip to America cost 
nearly one hundred dollars, and this seemed an 
enormous sum to the poor peasant. Still, many did 
get away. The Jews came first, and their letters to 
friends about the wealth of America stimulated the 
peasants in the border states to try their fortune in 
this land of untold opportunity. There were three 
chief groups : the political refugees, or revolutionists, 
the unorthodox, who sought religious freedom, and 
the vast majority who came to make money and 
then return home, or at least to escape the poverty 
and injustice of Russia. There were still a few 
others who sought a new experience, exploration and 
adventure with new opportunities. 



The Social Impress of an Autocracy 211 

Characteristics of the Russian 

Because of the conditions in his European back- 
ground and because of certain racial traits, the 
Russian has come to America with other marked 
personal characteristics. Professor Etienne Anto- 
nelli, a political scientist of France, who has spent 
years in Russia, has summarized the thought of many 
Russian writers in the following: 

1. The peasant has a predominance of feeling over will. 

2. He does not perceive inconsistencies and is tolerant 
of ideas. 

3. He has a horror of any kind of rule or any kind of 
compulsion. 

4. He has little forethought and yields to the pleasure of 
the moment. 

5. He feels that passion excuses everything. 

6. He has no idea of parliamentary government and 
dislikes any kind of law. 

7. He has intellectual curiosity. 

8. He places the soul or personality above everything 
else, has a contempt for material things, and is incapable 
of strong hate. 

9. He believes in humility. The individual should efface 
himself in all. 

Some of these traits have been emphasized in 
Russian literature and unquestionably there is an 
element of truth in them, but their universal appli- 
cation is doubtful. For example, the peasant may 
hate laws and rules, but he certainly did not object 



212 The Russian Immigrant 

very seriously to those imposed by the mir. Any 
list of characteristics must be incomplete and open 
to criticism, but the writer prefers to call attention 
to the following: 

The Russian is very patient and stolid. He is 
willing to endure a good deal, even under bad 
conditions, and will work uncomplainingly for long 
hours at low wages. The peasant is thoroughly 
religious. In every home you see an ikon, or sacred 
picture. As to the church and the priest, he may or 
may not be skeptical, depending on his experience. 
His love of music and the theater is a well-known 
characteristic. He is very sympathetic, always will- 
ing to contribute to the need of those who are 
suffering. If a Russian is killed in a mine or factory, 
his neighbors will often care for the widow and 
children, though they themselves may barely be 
making a living. The peasant is naturally suspicious 
of strangers, the inevitable and bitter result of a 
long experience with those whom he regards as 
superiors. None the less, sociability is a marked 
trait. The Russian likes to talk by the hour to his 
friends and will share his last morsel of food, while 
he talks with a stranger. He is also quickly respon- 
sive to what strikes him as a higher good, and is 
willing to suffer for it. The long record of those 
who have died for their revolutionary ideals, and 
the larger number who have suffered for years in 
the Tsar's prisons is eloquent testimony to this trait. 

Such, then, is the character of the Russia,n Slav 



The Social Impress of an Autocracy 213 

who comes to replenish the labor of our Industrial 
army in factory, mine, and workshop. The impress 
of an autocratic Tsar's regime lies heavy upon these 
people. They come with a big handicap, but also 
with traits which are good. Many of them have the 
same longing for liberty that actuated our fore- 
fathers when they founded this republic. We should 
be ready to help them to understand and appreciate 
our democracy. Furthermore, America needs their 
labor, and if they can but be assimilated, they may 
well contribute to our welfare and happiness. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

ON 

The Russians in America 
I. Books, Public Documents and Pamphlets 

Abbott, Grace, The Immigrant and the Community, New York; 
Century Co., 1917. 

Antin, Mary, The Promised Land, Boston and New York: Hough- 
ton Mifflin Co., 1912. 

Antin, Mary, They Who Knock at Our Gates, Boston and New 
York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1914. 

Balch, E. G., Our Slavic Fello<v} Citizens, New York: Charities 
Publication Committee, 1910. 

Breckinridge, S. P., New Homes for Old, New York: Harper and 
Brothers Co., 1921. 

Byington, M. F., Homestead: The Households of a Mill Town, New 
York: Charities Publication Committee, 1910. 

California Commission of Immigration and Housing, Report on an 
Experiment in Los Angeles in the summer of igiy for 
Americanization of foreign-horn women, Sacramento: State 
Printing Office, 1917. 

California Commission of Immigration and Housing, Report of 
Fresno's Immigration Problem, Sacramento: State Printing 
Office, 1917. 

Commons, J. R., Races and Immigrants in America, New York: 
Macmillan Co., 1915. 

Daniels, John, America via the Neighborhood, New York: Harper 
and Brothers Co., 1920. 

Davis, M. M., Jr., Immigrant Health and the Community, New 
York: Harper and Brothers Co., 1921. 

Dimock, L. A., Comrades from Other Lands, New York and Chi- 
cago: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1913. 

Fitch, J. A., The Steel Workers, New York: Charities Publication 
Committee, 1910. 

Grose, H. B., Aliens or Americans? New York: Missionary Educa- 
tion Movement, 1912. 

Henry, J. R., Some Immigrant Neighbors, New York and Chicago: 
Fleming H. Revell Co., 1912. 

Hodges, LeRoy, Slavs on Southern Farms, Washington: Government 
Printing Office, 1914. Senate Document, No. 595. 

McClure, Archibald, Leadership of the New America, Racial and 
Religious, New York: George H. Doran Co., 1916. 

Orth, S. P., Our Foreigners; A Chronicle of Americans in the 
Making, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1920. 

21S 



2i6 The Russian Immigrant 

Park, R. E., and Miller, H. A., Old World Traits Transplanted, 
New York: Harper and Brothers Co., 1920. 

Prugavin, A S., Religious Sects in New York, Pamphlet in Rus- 
sian. 

Prugavin, A. S., Die Inquisition der russisch orthodoxen Kirche, 
Berlin: F. Gottheiner, 1905. 

Ripley, W. Z., The Races of Europe, New York: D. Appleton and 
Co., 1899. 

Roberts, Peter, Immigrant Races in North America, New York: 
Y. M. C. A. Press, 1910. 

Roberts, Peter, The Neiv Immigration, New York: Macmillan Co., 
1912. 

Ross, E. A., The Old World in the Neiu, New York: Century Co., 

Sheridan, F. J., Italian, Slavic, and Hungarian Unskilled Immigrant 
Laborers in the United States, Washington: Government 
Printing Office, 1907. Dept. of Labor Bulletin, vol. 15. 

Slavic Alliance in Cleveland, Cleveland, 1904. Pamphlet in Rus- 
sian. 

Smith, R. K., The People of the Eastern Orthodox Churches, Spring- 
field (Mass.), 1913. 

Sokoloff, Alexis, Mediaeval Russia, New York: Survey Associates, 
1914. Pittsburg Survey, vol. 6. 

Sokaloflf, Lillian, Russians in Los Angeles, University of Southern 
California, 1918. Publications in Sociology, no. 17. 

Speek, P. A., A Stake in the Land, New York: Harper and Brothers 
Co., 1921. 

Steiner, E. A,, The Broken Wall, New York and Chicago: Fleming 
H. Revell Co., 191 1. 

Thompson, F. V., Schooling of the Immigrant, New York: Harper 
and Brothers Co., 1920 

Thompson, R. A., The Russian Settlement in California Knoivn as 
Fort Rosa, Santa Rosa (Cal.) : Sonoma Democrat Publishing 
Co., 1896. Pamphlet. 

United States Bureau of the Census, Thirteenth and Fourteenth 
Census, Washington: Government Printing Office. 

United States Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, One 
Hundred Years of American Immigration, Washington: 
Government Printing Office, 1919. Daily Consular and Trade 
Reports, No. 254. 

United States Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Statis- 
tical Abstract of the United States, iq/q, Washington: 
Government Printing Office, 1920. 

United States Bureau of Immigration, Annual Reports of the 
Commissioner-General of Immigration to the Secretary of 
Labor, 1910-20, Washington: Government Printing Office. 

United States Immigration Commission, Reports, Washington: 
Government Printing Office, 1911. Vols. 1-42. 



Bibliography 2 1 7 

Van Kleeck, Mary, Artificial Floiver Makers, New York: Survey 
Associates, 1913. 

Warne, F. J., The Immigrant Invasion, New York: Dodd, Mead 
and Co., 1913. 

Wright, C. D., Influence of Trade Unions on Immigrants, Wash- 
ington: Government Printing Office, 1905. Department of 
Labor Bulletin, No. 56. 



II. Magazine Articles 

Ainsworth, F. H., "Are We Shouldering Europe's Burden?" 

Charities, and the Commons, vol. 12, pp. 134-5, February 6, 

1904. 
Balch, E. G., "Peasant Background of Our Slavic Fellow Citizens," 

Survey, vol. 24, pp. 666-77, August 6, 1910. 
Boas, Franz, "Race Problems in America," Science, vol. 29, 

pp. 839-49, May 28, 1909. 
Boeckh, Richard, "The Determination of Racial Stock Among 

American Immigrants," Quarterly Publications of the Ameri- 
can Statistical Association, vol. 10, pp. 199-221, December, 

1906. 
Bolonski, J. R., "Poolrooms or Schoolrooms for Russians in 

America," Survey, vol. 44, pp. 519-20, July 17, 1920. 
Cance, Alexander, "Slav Farmers on the 'Abandoned Farm' Area 

of Connecticut," Survey, vol. 27, pp. 951-6, October 7, 191 1. 
Cance, Alexander, "Immigrant Rural Communities," Annals of the 

American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. 40, 

pp. 69-80, March, 1912. 
Claghorn, K. H., "Immigration in Its Relation to Pauperism," 

Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social 

Science, vol. 24, pp. 187-205, July, 1904. 
Claghorn, K. H., "Our Immigrants and Ourselves," Atlantic 

Monthly, vol. 86, pp. 535-48, October, 1900. 
Commons, J. R., "Race Composition of the American People," 

Chautauquan, vol. 38, pp. 33-42, 118-25, 223-34, 333-40> 

433-43, 533-43; vol. 39, pp. 13-22, 115-24, 217-25, September, 

1 903 -May, 1904. 
Commons, J. R., "Slavs in the Bituminous Mines of Illinois," 

Charities and the Commons, vol. 13, pp. 227-9, December 3, 

1904. 
Commons, J. R., "Wage Earners of Pittsburg," Charities and the 

Commons, vol. 21, pp. 1051-64, March 6, 1909. 
Durand, E. D., "Our Immigrants and the Future," World's Work, 

vol. 23, pp. 431-43, February, 1912. 
Elkinton, Joseph, "The Dukhobors," Charities and the Commons, 

vol. 13, pp. 252-6, December 3, 1904. 
Fetler, William, "Russians in the United States," Missionary 

Revievu of the World, vol. 38, pp. 923-8, December, 1915. 



21 8 The Russian Immigrant 

Fleming, W. L., "Immigration to the Southern States," Political 

Science Quarterly, vol. 20, pp. 276-97, June, 1905. 
Foster, Maximilian, "The Citizen," Everybody's, vol. 19, pp. 628-40, 

November, 1908. 
Gruszczynski, Maxim, "Russian Immigrant on American Conti- 
nent," Pan-American Magazine, vol. 26, pp. 29-34, November, 

1917. 
Henry, J. R., "Do Russians Make Good American Citizens?" 

World Outlook, vol. 6, pp. 14-15, May, 1920. 
Hine, L. W., "Immigrant Types in the Steel Districts," Charities 

and the Commons, vol. 21, pp. 581-8, January 2, 1909. 
Hrdlicka, Ales, "The Slavs," Czechoslovak Revieiv, vol. 2, pp. 

180-187, November, 1918. 
Hughes, Elizabeth, "Chicago Housing Conditions," American Jour- 
nal of Sociology, vol. 20, pp. 289-312, November, 1914. 
Kellogg, P. U., "The McKee's Rocks Strike," Survey, vol. 22, pp. 

656-65, August 7, 1909. 
Kellor, F. A., "Protection of Immigrant Women," Atlantic Monthly, 

vol. loi, pp. 246-55, February, 1908. 
Koukol, A. B., "The Slav's a Man for a' That," Charities and the 

Commons, vol. 21, pp. 589-98, January 2, 1909. 
Lauck, W. J., "The Bituminous Coal Miner and Coke Worker of 

Western Pennsylvania," Survey, vol. 26, pp. 34-51, April i, 

1911. 
Lee, Joseph, "Assimilation and Nationality," Charities and the 

Commons, vol. 19, pp. 1453-55, January 25, 1908. 
Literary Digest, "Russians in America," vol. 63, p. 41, November 

29, 1919. 
Lloyd, J. A. T., "Teuton versus Slav," Fortnightly Review, vol. 105, 

pp. 883-93, May, 1916. 
Lovejoy, O. R., "The Slav Child: A National Asset or a Liability," 

Charities and the Commons, vol. 14, pp. 882-4, July i, 1905. 
McLaughlin, Allan, "The Slavic Immigrant," Popular Science 

Monthly, vol. 63, pp. 25-32, May, 1903. 
Mayo-Smith, Richmond, "Theories of Mixtures of Races and 

Nationalities," Yale Revieiv, vol. 3, pp. 166-186, August, 1894. 
Miller, H. A., "The Lost Division," Survey, vol. 40, pp. 307-9, 

June 15, 1918. 
Moravsky, M., "Greenhorn in America," Atlantic Monthly, vol. 122, 

pp. 663-9, November, 1918. 
Norton, E. S., "The Need of a General Plan for Settling Immigrants 

Outside the Great Cities," Charities and the Commons, vol. 

12, pp. 152-4, February 6, 1904. 
Outlook, "Russian Immigrant and His Savings," vol. 114, p. 13, 

September 6, 1916. 
Parker, E. H., "Russians in Business," Chamber's Journal, pp. 103-6, 

February, 1915. 
Ripley, W. Z., "Race Factors in Labor Unions," Atlantic Monthly, 

vol. 93, pp. 299-308, March, 1904. 



Bibliography 21Q 

Ripley, W. Z., "The European Population of the United States," 
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great 
Britain and Ireland, vol. 28, pp. 221-40, 1908. 

Roberts, Peter, "The New Pittsburgers: Slavs and Kindred Immi- 
grants in Pittsburg," Charities and the Commons, vol. 21, 
PP- 533-52, January 2, 1909. 

Ross, E. A., "Slavs in America," Century Magazine, vol. 88, pp. 
590-8, August, 1914. 

Sayles, M. B., "Housing and Social Conditions in a Slavic Neigh- 
borhood," Charities and the Commons, vol. 13, pp. 257-61, 
December 3, 1904. 

Smith, R. D., "Some Phases of the McKee's Rocks Strike," Survey, 
vol. 23, pp. 38-45, October 2, 1909. 

Sokoloff, Alexis, "Old Believers," Survey, vol. 33, pp. 145-51, 
November 7, 1914. 

Steiner, E. A., "From the Lovezin to Guinea Hill," Outlook, vol. 89, 
pp. 247-52, May 30, 1908. 

Steiner, E. A., "The Foreign Born Population of the United States," 
Scientific Monthly, vol. 8, pp. 380-3, April, 1919. 

Survey, "Russians in American Schools," vol. 44, p. 590, August 
2, 1920. 

Survey, "United for Freedom at Home," vol. 40, p. 292, June 8, 1918. 

Townley-Fullam, C, "Pan-Slavism in America," Forum, vol. 52, 
pp. 177-85, August, 1914. 

Tridon, A., "Russian Baiting in Our Ports," Public, vol. 21, pp. 
698-700, June I, 1918. 

Wilson, H. L., and Smith, E. W., "Chicago Housing Conditions 
Among Slovaks," American Journal of Sociology, vol. 20, 
pp. 145-169, September, 1914. 

Wing, M. T. C, "The Flag at McKee's Rocks," Survey, vol. 23, 
pp. 45-6, October 2, 1909. 

Woolston, Florence, "Slavs in the United States," Technical World, 
pp. 135-44, October, 1911. 



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